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= January 11 =


==JeJu AirFlight 2216 ==
</noinclude>
Is this the beginning of a new conspiracy theory?
On 11 January, the Aviation and Railway Accident Investigation Board stated that both the CVR and FDR had stopped recording four minutes before the aircraft crashed.


Why would the flight recorder stop recording after the bird strike? Don't they have backup battery for flight recorders?
{{Misplaced Pages:Reference_desk/Archives/Humanities/2009 September 12}}
] (]) 09:59, 11 January 2025 (UTC)


:Do you mean JeJu Air Flight 2216? ] (]) 14:27, 11 January 2025 (UTC)
{{Misplaced Pages:Reference_desk/Archives/Humanities/2009 September 13}}


::Yes, you are right, flight 2216 not 2219. I have updated the title. ] (]) 14:51, 11 January 2025 (UTC)
{{Misplaced Pages:Reference_desk/Archives/Humanities/2009 September 14}}


It says on[REDACTED] that "With the reduced power requirements of solid-state recorders, it is now practical to incorporate a battery in the units, so that recording can continue until flight termination, even if the aircraft electrical system fails. ". So how can the CVR stop recording the pilot's voices??? ] (]) 10:11, 11 January 2025 (UTC)
= September 15 =


:The aircraft type was launched in 1994, this particular aircraft entered service in 2009. It may have had an older type of recorder.
== Conflict thesis? ==
:I too am puzzled by some aspects of this crash, but I'm sure the investigators will enlighten us when they're ready. ] (]) 11:41, 11 January 2025 (UTC)
::Having looked into this briefly, it sounds like an independent power supply for the CVR (generally called a Recorder Independent Power Supply/RIPS) was only mandated for aircraft manufacturer from 2010 in the US . I doubt anyone else required them before. So not particularly surprising if this aircraft didn't have one. I think, but am not sure, that even in the US older aircraft aren't required to be retrofitted with these newer recorders. (See e.g. .) In fact, the only regulator I could find with such a mandate is the Canadian one and that isn't until 2026 at the earliest . Of course even if the FAA did require it, it's a moot point unless it was required for any aircraft flying to the US and this aircraft was flying to the US. I doubt it was required in South Korea given that it doesn't seem to be required in that many other places. There is a lot of confusing discussion about what the backup system if any on this aircraft would have been like . The most I gathered from these discussions is that because the aircraft was such an old design where nearly everything was mechanical, a backup power supply wasn't particularly important in its design. The only expert commentary in RS I could find was in Reuters "{{tqi|a former transport ministry accident investigator, said the discovery of the missing data from the budget airline's Boeing 737-800 jet's crucial final minutes was surprising and suggests all power, including backup, may have been cut, which is rare.}}" Note that the RIPS only have to work for 10 minutes, I think the timeline of this suggests power should not have been lost for 10 minutes at the 4 minutes point, but it's not something I looked in to. BTW, I think this is sort of explained in some of the other sources but if not see . Having a RIPS is a little more complicated than just having a box with a battery. There's no point recording nothing so you need to ensure that the RIPS is connected to/powering mics in the cabin. ] (]) 01:28, 12 January 2025 (UTC)
:The aircraft made 13 flights in 48 hours, meaning less than 3.7 hours per flight. Is it too much? Its last flight from Bangkok to Korea had a normal flight time for slightly more than 5 hours. Does it mean the pilots had to rush through preflight checks? ] (]) 15:31, 11 January 2025 (UTC)
:With this kind of schedule, it is questionable that the aircraft is well-maintained. ] (]) 15:32, 11 January 2025 (UTC)
The OP seems to be obsessed with creating a new conspiracy theory out of very little real information, and even less expertise. Perhaps a new hobby is in order? ] (]) 19:37, 11 January 2025 (UTC)


Just for info, the article is ]. This question has not yet been raised at the Talk page there. Thanks. ] (]) 19:42, 11 January 2025 (UTC)
Is the claim in the ] article--namely, that the thesis has been discredited--accurate? It seems like it is, but after reading more about history, I'm beginning to doubt it.


:...nor should it be, per ]. ]|] 10:03, 12 January 2025 (UTC)
Thanks. <span style="font-size: smaller;" class="autosigned">—Preceding ] comment added by ] (]) 02:17, 15 September 2009 (UTC)</span><!-- Template:UnsignedIP --> <!--Autosigned by SineBot-->
::I disagree. It's quite a critical aspect in the investigation of the accident. Not sure it's some kind of "conspiracy", however. ] (]) 10:18, 12 January 2025 (UTC)
:::But I suggest it should only be raised if, and to the extent that, it is mentioned in ], not ] speculated about by/in the Misplaced Pages article or (at length) the Talk page. On the Talk page it might be appropriate to ask if there ''are'' Reliable sources discussing it. {The poster formerly known as 87.81.230.195} ] (]) 10:53, 12 January 2025 (UTC)
::::Quite. ] (]) 10:54, 12 January 2025 (UTC)
::::Have now posed the question there. ] (]) 12:07, 12 January 2025 (UTC)


== Fortune 500 ==
:The idea that science and religion are somehow in conflict is really only something that is used by politicians when it is convenient to make it seem so when they come up for election. Historically, many major European scientists were very religious (]) or even clerics themselves (] and ]). Lots of devout people of all faiths have been and are currently active in scientific pursuits. There have been isolated conflicts between religious people and scientific people, but this is different from the ideas of the "conflict thesis". That idea holds that there are ''irreconcilable differences'' between a scientific worldview and a religious worldview. This is clearly not true. If you want to read a great, fairly short, and well accessable book which pretty handily refutes conflict thesis, then you should pick up '']'' by ]. --]''''']''''' 02:27, 15 September 2009 (UTC)
:: Dawkins has a thing or two to say about that in The God Delusion. "Gould carried the art of bending over backwards to positively supine lengths in one of his less admired books, Rocks of Ages." ] (]) 02:46, 15 September 2009 (UTC)
::Science and the general concept of religion aren't in conflict, but science is certainly in conflict with most particular religions. For example, The Bible says life was created in a week about 6000 years ago, science says it evolved over the last few billion years - that is a conflict. Yes, most Christians choose to ignore that bit of the Bible since it is rather inconvenient, but that just makes them inconsistent. --] (]) 02:50, 15 September 2009 (UTC)
::A modern name to add to the list is the ] of the ], an ] (but not the crazy kind, apparently, as the Intelligent Design crowd seems to be embarrassed by him). --] 15:47, 15 September 2009 (UTC)
::Ok, I've just gone and actually read the first few sentences of the article and I'm misinterpreting the question/thesis! It is talking about a historic conflict between religious people and scientists, not a logical conflict between the ideas, sorry. I think a conflict between religious people and scientifically minded people is a fairly recent occurrence, really. Historically there wasn't really a distinction - all educated people (in Europe, at least) would have studied theology and would have been religious (at least in practice, they might not of actually believed it, but they would have gone to church - many, like Newton, clearly did believe it very strongly). --] (]) 02:55, 15 September 2009 (UTC)


Is there any site where one can view complete Fortune 500 and Fortune Global 500 for free? These indices are so widely used so is there such a site? --] (]) 20:05, 11 January 2025 (UTC)
:It looks like Jayron (and initially, Tango) thought I was talking about whether science and religion contradict each other, not whether they were historically opposed. I meant the latter. I certainly don't need the reference desk to decide whether two ideas contradict each other; all I need to do is to read the ideas (in this case, the Bible and a biology/astronomy/cosmology textbook) and decide for myself.
:Thanks for the answers so far! I was concerned about religious bias in the articles I find on the Internet. So, it looks like the article is accurate, then? --] (]) 03:36, 15 September 2009 (UTC)
Coming in a bit late, but I'd like to recommend the book "Einstein's Luck", also published as "Fabulous Science", by John Waller. While certainly harbouring no religious or anti-science bias, it contains, among other intriguing stuff, a nice account of how the 19th century "battle" between the church and "Darwin's bulldogs" really went down. According to Waller's hypothesis, it was (in Britain at least) less about science versus religion than it was about up-and-coming, middle-class, professional researchers versus old-fashioned privileged gentleman scientists. And by the way, if you want to see someone bending over backwards but in the opposite direction, check out Christopher Hitchens trying to make the founding fathers of the U.S. into atheists.--] (]) 06:20, 15 September 2009 (UTC)


:You can view the complete list here: https://fortune.com/ranking/global500/ ] (]) 21:50, 11 January 2025 (UTC)
:Amongst professional historians of science, the conflict thesis is seen as pretty much discredited. How do they do so, in the face of, say, Galileo? Simple. They say, "Galileo wasn't a fundamental conflict between science and religion. It was a localized power conflict between Galileo and agents of the Inquisition." That is, it's a difference between saying there are ''fundamental'' issues at heart and whether you are talking about a localized issue (e.g. Galileo is deliberately defying the reigning power in his region just at a time when they feel the need to consolidate it for political purposes). Ditto Darwin and the Creationists—not about science v. religion, per se, but about the specific conditions of modernizing science in Victorian society, and what that represented. Or, in the modern era, one would suggest that the current Creationist debate has really very little to do with science v. religion, but the politics of religious fundamentalism, esp. in the United States.
:Another main objection to the conflict thesis is that thinking about the interactions of science and religion in terms of the relatively few conflicts is misleading. A majority of the time, they got along reasonably well, and for every example one has of religion apparently antagonizing science (and vice versa), you have probably dozens more examples of scientists being inspired by, funded by, or otherwise engaged by religion. (Or, put another way, for every Galileo, you have a Newton.)
:Sometimes the ways of wriggling out of the conflict thesis seem either a bit too hair-splitting or even ridiculous—like assertions that Galileo's interaction with the Inquisition should not be called a "conflict" but rather a "dialogue". (Yes, this has actually been argued. Yes, it is as silly as it sounds.) Alas, such is the way of academia. Nonetheless, I do think it is worth emphasizing that the conflict thesis from a historical standpoint is at best a distortion of its own, and rather extreme. There are ''plenty'' of examples to counter the idea that science and religion have interacted primarily by "conflict" historically—the Church was one of the major patrons of science for hundreds of years. Just the same, there have been a number of "conflicts" and perhaps that's the best way to describe them, and some of these conflicts have, in fact, centered largely on fundamental questions about who has the right to say what, which most people would agree is something core to the functions of both science and religion, ''even if'' there are also always tons of localized political factors involved. --] (]) 13:55, 15 September 2009 (UTC)


= January 12 =
== Famous critics of university ==


== Questions ==
I'm giving a presentation and I want to show a continual trend of people criticizing modern university for a segue. For example, Tolstoy argued that universities require student to memorize and regurgitate while ignoring their own thoughts that may differ from the instructor. Seeley claimed that a university can be good at advancing science or educating students, but not both. What are some modern (1900's) critics? -- ]] 02:56, 15 September 2009 (UTC)
: Do you mean from any time in the 20th c., or just the first decade of it? ] (]) 03:04, 15 September 2009 (UTC)
::]'s ] comes into mind. The novel -besides other topics - also describes the author's experiences at university. Here an excerpt from it:


# Why did the United Kingdom not seek euro adoption when it was in EU?
Schools teach you to imitate. If you don't imitate what the teacher wants you get a bad grade. Here, in college,
# Why did Russia, Belarus and Ukraine not join EU during Eastern Enlargement in 2004, unlike many other former Eastern Bloc countries?
it was more sophisticated, of course; you were supposed to imitate the teacher in such a way as to convince the
# Why is Russia not in NATO?
teacher you were not imitating, but taking the essence of the instruction and going ahead with it on your own.
# If all African countries are in AU, why are all European countries not in EU?
That got you A's. Originality on the other hand could get you anything...from A to F. The whole grading system
# Why Faroe Islands and Greenland have not become sovereign states yet?
cautioned against it.
# Can non-sovereign states or country subdivisions have embassies?
# Why French overseas departments have not become sovereign states yet? --] (]) 13:35, 12 January 2025 (UTC)
#:I see that ] offer a course on . Had you considered that, perhaps? ] (]) 13:43, 12 January 2025 (UTC)
#:# See: ]
#:# Russia, Belarus and Ukraine do not meet the criteria for joining the European Union
#:# If you google "Nato's primary purpose", you will know.
#:# The two do not have logical connection.
#:# They are too small to be an independent country
#:# Non-sovereign states or countries, for example Wales and Scotland, are countries within a sovereign state. They don't have embassies of their own.
#:# Unlike the British territories, all people living in the French territories are fully enfranchised and can vote for the French national assembly, so they are fully represented in the French democracy and do not have the need of becoming a sovereign state.
#:] (]) 15:16, 12 January 2025 (UTC)
#::Some of the French overseas territories are ] with a degree of autonomy from Paris, whilst ] has a special status and may be edging towards full independence. I imagine all the overseas territories contain at least some people who would prefer to be fully independent, there's a difference between sending a few representatives to the government of a larger state and having your own sovereign state (I offer no opinion on the merits/drawbacks of such an aspiration). ] (]) 13:06, 15 January 2025 (UTC)
:Too many questions all at once… but to address the first with an overly simplistic answer: The British preferred the Pound. It had been one of the strongest currencies in the world for generations, and keeping it was a matter of national pride. ] (]) 14:03, 12 January 2025 (UTC)


::1. See ]
::And there is much more against universities in it. ] (]) 10:58, 15 September 2009 (UTC)
::2. {{xt|"... geopolitical considerations, such as preserving Russia’s status as a former imperial power, is more important to Moscow than economic issues when it comes to foreign policy. Russia’s sees relations with the EU to be much less important than bilateral relations with the EU member-states that carry the most political weight, namely France, Germany and, to some extent, Britain. Russia thus clearly emphasizes politics over economics. While NATO enlargement was seen by Moscow to be a very important event, Russia barely noticed the enlargement of the EU on May 1."}} . See also ].
::3. See ].
::] (]) 14:10, 12 January 2025 (UTC)


::It's not specifically about university, but it has pure Bertrand Russell pithiness: "Men are born ignorant, not stupid; they are made stupid as a result of education." ] (]) 12:57, 15 September 2009 (UTC) ::(5) They're too small? Somebody tell ], ] (21 km<sup>2</sup>) and ] (26 km<sup>2</sup>) they have no business being nations. ] (]) 03:08, 13 January 2025 (UTC)
:::More like economically too weak. From our article on the ]: “In 2011, 13% of the Faroe Islands' national income consists of economic aid from ], corresponding to roughly 5% of GDP.” They're net recipients of taxpayer money; no way they could have built their largely underground road network themselves. The Faroe Islands have no significant agriculture, little industry or tourism. The only thing they really have is fishing rights in their huge exclusive economic zone, but an economy entirely dependent on fishing rights is vulnerable. They could try as a tax haven, but competing against the Channel Islands or Cayman Islands won't be easy. Greenland has large natural resources, including ], and developing mining would generate income, but also pollute the environment and destroy Greenlandic culture. ] (]) 10:23, 13 January 2025 (UTC)
:::First, because of religious reason, Vatican City is very unique. Second, although it is technically an independent state, according to Article 22 of the Lateran Treaty, people sentenced to imprisonment by Vatican City serve their time in prison in Italy. Third, Saint Peter's Square is actually patrolled by Italian police. Its security and defence heavily relies on Italy. Its situation is similar to Liechtenstein whose security and defence are heavily relies on Austria and Switzerland and its sentenced persons are serving their time in Austria. The key common point of these small states are they’re inland states surrounded by rich and friendly countries that they can trust. ] (]) 10:32, 13 January 2025 (UTC)
:::As for Nauru and Tuvalu, the two states located near the equator, they are quite far away from other countries that would pose a threat to their national security. The temperature, the reef islands and the atolls around them provide them with ample natural resources. However, even gifted with natural resources, these small pacific ocean islands are facing problems of low living standard, low GDP per capital and low HDI.
:::Back to the case of Faroe Islands and Greenland, people of these two places enjoy a relatively higher living standard and higher HDI than previously mentioned island states because they have the edge of being able to save a lot of administrative and security costs. If one day Faroe Islands and Greenland became independent, they will face other problems of independence, including problems similar to the fishing conflicts between UK and Norway. The future could be troublesome if Faroe Islands and Greenland ever sought independence from Demark. ] (]) 10:45, 13 January 2025 (UTC)


:Someone's bored again and expecting us to entertain them. ] (]) 15:59, 12 January 2025 (UTC)
::I wish I could recall who it was (possibly ]) who said that universities teach the "six R's - remedial reading, remedial 'riting, remedial 'rithmetic." ] <sup>'']''</sup> ] 13:05, 15 September 2009 (UTC)


::40bus often asks mass questions like this on the Language Ref. Desk. Now you get to enjoy him on the Humanities Ref. Desk. The answers to 2, 3, and 4 are somewhat the same -- the African Union is basically symbolic, while the EU and NATO are highly-substantive, and don't admit nations for reasons of geographic symmetry only. ] (]) 06:38, 13 January 2025 (UTC)
::Look for a book titled 'Tenured Radicals'; also, ]'s 'The Closing of the American Mind' touches on this subject. ] (]) 13:32, 15 September 2009 (UTC)


= January 13 =
::], in one or other of his two popular autobiographical works -
:::(Surely You're Joking, Mr. Feynman!: Adventures of a Curious Character, with contributions by Ralph Leighton, W. W. Norton & Co, 1985, ISBN 0-393-01921-7, and
:::What Do You Care What Other People Think?: Further Adventures of a Curious Character, with contributions by Ralph Leighton, W. W. Norton & Co, 1988, ISBN 0-393-02659-0) -
::describes being commissioned by the Government of, I think (don't quote me, read the books), Brazil to examine their university science teaching programs and determine why they were failing to produce many good scientists. One of his conclusions was that the students were being taught to regurgitate abstract formulae and descriptions but not to connect these with any actual phenomena in their everyday experience; thus they could say that light reflected from a surface is polarised and even write down relevant equations, but could not think of any actual examples even when they were sitting at a polished table with a view throught the window of the sun sparkling off the sea. ] (]) 13:50, 15 September 2009 (UTC)
:::It was indeed Brazil. I'm not sure if he used the phrase, but he was basically describing ] education. In his popular on the ] procurement process, Feynman describes how at the elementary level they don't even try to make science relevant to the real world. "Do all ] have an "S" in them?" <small>How wonderful we have all memorized and regurgitated these examples for Kainaw! </small>--] 15:40, 15 September 2009 (UTC)


== reference behind ] ==
:Thanks all. I was able to add a line of guys with little blurbs and it led very well from making note of the "memorization-regurgitation" problem to our modern solution: powerpoint slides! Now, how much more sarcasm can I sink into praise of the powerpoint solution? -- ]] 14:44, 15 September 2009 (UTC)


from Season 4 Episode 12 of the West Wing:
::My favorite is from H.L. Mencken: "Let us not burn the universities - yet. After all, the damage they do might be worse.... Suppose Oxford had snared and disemboweled Shakespeare! Suppose Harvard had rammed its buttermilk into Mark Twain!" ] (]) 17:00, 15 September 2009 (UTC)


They all begin to exit.
::You might profitably trawl through ]'s essays where he warned against the post-WW11 expansion of universities, with his much-quoted aphorism: 'More will mean worse'.


BARTLET
You might look into the twin revolutions of the University system at the start of the 19th century: ]'s creation of the ] system, as a rational, meritocratic rival to the University; and the establishment, in Berlin, of the world's first research-oriented university,]. Actually, universities have ''always'' been denounced. Even in the Middle Ages they were frowned upon as potential hotbeds of heresy. ] (]) 18:06, 15 September 2009 (UTC)
Maxine.


C.J.
:Also take a look at the book ], a novel by John Kenneth Galbraith, ] for critics of specific aspects of a university.--] (]) 19:06, 15 September 2009 (UTC)
That's you.


JOSH
== Non-resident American able to drive in America? ==
I know.


Leo, C.J., and Toby leave.
'''Here's an unusual situation:''' I'm an American, but have lived overseas for many years (currently a resident of China) and my US driver's license has long since expired. I have no legal residence in the U.S., but will be visiting there in Spring 2010. My understanding is that '''foreigners''' with legal driver's licenses in their home country are able to drive while visiting the States, but I'm not a foreigner... Stuck in a bit of a gray area as I am, I'm having trouble finding a definitive answer. I suspect this is a Federal matter, but I would most likely be driving in the Gulf Coast states if that's relevant. Can someone on the RefDesk help me? I submit that this falls firmly into the realm of legal ''reference'', rather than legal ''advice''... Thank you. ] (]) 06:14, 15 September 2009 (UTC)


:No, it does not fall in the realm of legal reference (whatever it may be). Answering if you can drive in the US would be legal advice. --] (]) 08:08, 15 September 2009 (UTC) What is Maxine referencing here? From the context of the scene, it's probably a historical figure related to politics or the arts. I went over the list in ] but couldn't find anything I recognize. ] (]) 20:36, 13 January 2025 (UTC)


(I asked on the Humanities desk instead of the Entertainment desk because I'm guessing the reference isn't a pop-culture one but a historical one.) ] (]) 20:37, 13 January 2025 (UTC)
::This is silly. Yes, it would be legal advice to tell him whether he could or could not drive. However, it would not be legal advice to refer him to the relevant statutes or resources. We can discuss our own experiences and refer the poster to resources. I would recommend the poster contact the DMV of whichever state he'll be visiting to ask. This situation must come up fairly often considering how many expats come out of the US. ] (]) 08:22, 15 September 2009 (UTC)


:According to fandom.com: "When the President calls Josh Maxine, he refers to Hallmark Cards character Maxine, known for demanding people to agree with her." . --] (]) 21:17, 13 January 2025 (UTC)
::Quest09, thank you for not helping! Thank you, TheFutureAwaits, for understanding the intent of my question. I was hoping someone could help me find online documentation. I've been through the State Department site and the Florida DMV pages and haven't been able to get ANYTHING remotely related. Nor can I find anything on Google about American expats driving in America with foreign DLs. I'm not asking for interpretation, hence the ''reference'' rather than ''advice.'' ] (]) 08:29, 15 September 2009 (UTC)
::Based on the cards I see , Maxine is more snarky than demanding agreement. I don't know her that well, but I think she might even be wary of agreement, suspecting it to be faked out of facile politeness. &nbsp;--] 23:32, 13 January 2025 (UTC)
:::More background on Maxine here: https://agefriendlyvibes.com/blogs/news/maxine-the-birth-of-the-ageist-birthday-card ] (]) 18:24, 14 January 2025 (UTC)


= January 14 =
:::My non-help was not motivated by bad-faith or just to complain with the rules. The question is much more tricky that we might think. First, I doubt that you are right when you said that "My understanding is that '''foreigners''' with legal driver's licenses in their home country are able to drive while visiting the States". Driving without a valid DL can get you into serious trouble. Therefore, you'll need legal advice. ] (]) 08:39, 15 September 2009 (UTC)


== Ministerial confirmation hearings ==
::: says that via an ] & a valid license in your home country foreigners are ok. However, I'm still in legal purgatory! ] (]) 09:03, 15 September 2009 (UTC)
::::That is not exactly the same case as earlier. And yes, you still need legal advise, specially if you have had a US DL and you lost it. ] (]) 09:14, 15 September 2009 (UTC)
:::::Since you've been unable to track down any online information, surely the next best thing is to pick up the phone and call whoever might know the answer. If you're in China and don't want to rack up international call charges, why not call your nearest US embassy? --] ]] 09:42, 15 September 2009 (UTC)
If you drive while you're in China, why not apply for an International Driving Licence? ] (]) 09:47, 15 September 2009 (UTC)
:It is not clear that US citizens can just apply for an International DL. Just imagine that you have lost your DL while DUI. You could travel to Mexico or Canada and come back with an IDL. Possibly, there is some restriction against that. ] (]) 09:59, 15 September 2009 (UTC)
::That wouldn't help you to get around the ban, though, would it? As 218 points out, an international driving licence is only valid in conjunction with a valid licence in your home country. --] ]] 10:14, 15 September 2009 (UTC)
:::Yes, but what is your home country? For a US citizen in the US, I could say, is it the US or not? Answering this question, since you would be interpreting laws, is already legal advise, which we don't give here in the RD. ] (]) 10:21, 15 September 2009 (UTC)
::::Well, the suggestion is only that he ''apply'' for an IDL. That says nothing about whether or not he will actually receive it. All of which supports my already stated view that the only correct answer to the OP's question is not "we don't give legal advice" but "pick up the phone and talk to the authorities". --] ]] 11:18, 15 September 2009 (UTC)
:::::Not giving legal advice implies, according to some fundamentalist interpretations, not even saying "pick up the phone" and find someone who can help you. ] (]) 11:52, 15 September 2009 (UTC)


Is there any parliamentary democracy in which all a prime minister's choices for minister are questioned by members of parliament before they take office and need to be accepted by them in order to take office? ] (]) 18:36, 14 January 2025 (UTC)
:Three things which I feel confident saying, despite the restrictions on giving legal advice. The pages I've read don't make any restriction about it being only foreigners who can drive on a foreign license. just says "tourists", and that's you, if you are visiting. Also six months is probably more than enough time to get your US license renewed. At the very least, phone the DMV in the state you'll be visiting and check the legal situation with them. And finally, yes of course US citizens can apply for a IDP. What do you think they do when they want to drive abroad? ] (]) 13:37, 15 September 2009 (UTC)
::*I meant actually US citizens applying for a IDL to drive in the US. ] (]) 19:00, 15 September 2009 (UTC)
:::I know you meant that. But the point is that there is no bar on US citizens applying for an IDP. In fact I wasn't asked about citizenship. ] (]) 19:52, 15 September 2009 (UTC)


:No individual grilling sessions, but ] the Knesset has to approve the prime minister's choices. ]&nbsp;] 07:33, 15 January 2025 (UTC)
:Does 218.25.32.210 even have a Chinese drivers license? He never stated that he is driving in China, and I understand that many there use mass transit or walk places. Why couldn't he just have someone drive him to a motor vehicle office in any state, with all his ID papers, and take the written and driving tests, and walk away with a valid US license? ] (]) 14:36, 15 September 2009 (UTC)


== Is an occupied regime a country? ==
So are you going to be renting a car? I think the simplest thing would be to call Avis or whatever, explain exactly what you have by way of drivers license and see if they'll rent a car to you. If they will, I think it's pretty safe to assume you're in the clear. I'm almost certain they'll have no problem with a license from elsewhere. If you ''don't'' have a valid, current license from elsewhere, as Edison points out, they're ''not'' going to let you rent a car and it ''would'' be illegal to do so. ] (]) 18:22, 15 September 2009 (UTC)
:A very little googling comes up with the following: The ] is one of only two authorities in the US that can issue an IDP. The information I have summarized here is principally from its website. To qualify for an IDP issued in the US, the driver must have a valid US driver’s licence. site maintains that an IDP must always be issued by the nation from which the driver has obtain his/her driver’s licence. As ] is to the ], one cannot obtain an IDP from China. The IDP is valid only when carried in conjunction with, and acts as a translation of, a driver's license. It does appear that you will not be licensed to drive in the US unless (a) you first obtain a domestic licence from a country that also issues IDPs, and you also get an IDP from that country or (b) you re-qualify for a US licence. Citizenship does not appear to be the issue, though some jurisdictions issuing national driver's licences have a residency requirement. ] (]) 16:14, 16 September 2009 (UTC)


If a regime A of a country is mostly occupied by regime B, and regime B is later recognized as the representative of the country, while regime A, unable to reclaim control of the entire country, claims that it is itself a country and independent of regime B. the questio"n arises: is regim"e A a country? ] (]) 18:43, 14 January 2025 (UTC)
'''OP returns!''' ... with a response from the FL DMV:


:Are you talking about a ]? ] (]) 19:09, 14 January 2025 (UTC)
<blockquote>
:This is based on the definition of a country. Anyone in any place can claim to be a country. There is no legal paperwork required. There is no high court that you go to and make your claim to be a country. The first step is simply making the claim, "We are an independent country." Then, other countries have to recognize that claim. It is not 100%. There are claims where a group claims to be a country but nobody else recognizes it as a country, such as South Ossetia. There are others that have been recognized in the past, but not currently, such as Taiwan. There are some that are recognized by only a few countries, such as Abkhazia. From another point of view. There are organizations that claim they have the authority to declare what is and is not a country, such as the United Nations. But, others do not accept their authority on the matter. In the end, there is no way clearly define what is a country, which makes this question difficult to answer. ] (]) 20:46, 14 January 2025 (UTC)
Thank you for your recent inquiry.
::] {{tq|is a country,}} although I suppose the fact that this ''has'' multiple citations says something. (Mainly, it says that the CCP would like to edit it out.) ]&nbsp;] 06:46, 15 January 2025 (UTC)
:::I assumed that everyone was referring to independent countries. I think this is exactly what the question is about. Our article says Taiwan is part of China. China is a country. So, Taiwan is part of a country and not a country by itself. But, the article says it is a country. So, it is independent. It isn't part of China. Which is true? Both? ] (]) 20:51, 21 January 2025 (UTC)
::::"Our article says Taiwan is part of China." Where does it say that? --] (]) (]) 15:40, 22 January 2025 (UTC)
:Instead of trying to draft an abstract, do you have a concrete example you're thinking of? --] (]) 20:57, 14 January 2025 (UTC)
:One should always maintain a distinguish between countries and the regimes administering them. Syria was not the Assad regime – Assad is gone but Syria remains. Likewise, Russia is not the Putin regime. Identifying the two can only lead to confusion.
:What makes a geographic region (or collection of regions) a country – more precisely, a ]? There are countless ]s, several of which are sovereignty disputes; for example, the regimes of ] and ] claim each other's territory and deny each other's sovereignty over the territory the other effectively administers. Each has its own list of supporters of their claims. Likewise, the ] and ] claim each other's territory. By the definition of '']'', there is no agreement in such cases on the validity of such claims. The answer to the question whether the contested region in a sovereignty dispute is a country depends on which side of the dispute one chooses, which has more to do with ] than with any objectively applicable criteria. &nbsp;--] 10:16, 15 January 2025 (UTC)


::At least in part, it depends on other countries agreeing that a particular area is actually a nation and that the government that claims to represnt it has some legitimacy; see our ] article. For many nations, recognition would depend on whether the ] had been adhered to. ] (]) 12:24, 15 January 2025 (UTC)
You may drive in Florida without a Florida driver license, if you have a valid license from another state or country and if you are a non-resident up to 1 year . You are considered a resident of Florida if you: Enroll your children in public school, or Register to vote, or File for a homestead exemption, or Accept employment, or Reside in Florida for more than six consecutive months.
One of the peculiarities of the Cold War is the emergence of competing governments in multiple countries, along a more or less similar pattern. We had West and East Germany, South and North Vietnam, South and North Korea and ROC and PRC. The only thing that separates the Chinese case from the onset is that there was no usage of the terms West China (for PRC) and East China (for ROC), since the ROC control was limited to a single province (and a few minor islands). Over time the ROC lost most of its diplomatic recognition, and the notion that the government in Taipei represented all of China (including claims on Mongolia etc) became anachronistic. Gradually over decades, in the West it became increasingly common to think of Taiwan as a separate country as it looked separate from mainland China on maps and whatnot. Somewhat later within Taiwan itself political movements wanted (in varying degrees) to abandon the ROC and declare the island as a sovereign state of its own grew. Taiwanese nationalism is essentially a sort of separatism from the ROC ruling Taiwan.
In all of the Cold War divided countries, there have been processes were the political separation eventually becomes a cultural and social separation as well. At the onset everyone agrees that the separation is only a political-institutional technicality, but over time societies diverge. Even 35 years after the end of the GDR, East Germans still feel East German. In Korea and China there is linguistic divergence, as spelling reforms and orthography have developed differently under different political regimes. --] (]) 10:41, 16 January 2025 (UTC)


:The difference with Taiwan vs. the other Cold War governments is that pre-ROC Taiwan was under Japanese rule. Whereas other governments split existing countries, Taiwan was arguably a separate entity already. ] (]) 14:02, 18 January 2025 (UTC)
We hope this information will assist you.
:For the UK, the long-standing diplomatic position is that they recognise governments not countries, which has often avoided such complicated tangles. ] (]) 14:30, 18 January 2025 (UTC)
::To further complicate the issue with Taiwan... When the United States had a trade ban with China, most of the cheap goods shipped into the United States had a "Made in Taiwan" sticker. That was OK because hte United States recognized Taiwan as being completely separate from China. It was a bit odd that Taiwan could produce as much as it did. The reality is that they simply made "Made in Taiwan" stickers and put them on Chinese goods before sending them to the United States. When the trade ban was lifted, there was no need to route all the goods through Taiwan. Now, everything has "Made in China" stickers on them and the United States no longer recognizes Taiwan as an independent country. From a simplistic point of view, it appears that the recognition of status was based on convenience rather than political standing. ] (]) 15:14, 22 January 2025 (UTC)


== Photos in a novel ==
09/16/09
</blockquote>


I'm reading a certain novel. In the middle of Chapter II (written in the first person), there are three pages containing photos of the hotel the author is writing about. Flicking through I find another photo towards the end of the book. I think: this must be a memoir, not a novel. I check, but every source says it's a novel.
so there you have it. Thanks to everyone who tried to help. ] (]) 22:06, 16 September 2009 (UTC)


I've never encountered anything like this before: photos in a novel. Sure, novels are often based on real places, real people etc, but they use words to tell the story. Photos are the stuff of non-fiction. Are there any precedents for this? -- ] </sup></span>]] 20:59, 14 January 2025 (UTC)
== Welsh History grants ==


If anyone's interested, the novel is '']'' by ]. -- ] </sup></span>]] 21:00, 14 January 2025 (UTC)
I'm currently finishing my MA, and in a few years hope to go on to do my PhD in History, focusing on a biography of ], son of ]. However, times ar hard (enter chrous of violins) and being given money would certainly makes things easier. Are there any institutes in Wales, official, public or private, that give out grants for research into Welsh history? Any info would be gratefully received. Cheers, ] (]) 09:45, 15 September 2009 (UTC)


:IIRC ''Loving Monsters'' by James Hamilton-Patterson has some photos in it. ] (]) 21:03, 14 January 2025 (UTC)
:Do you live in Wales? I'm sure that Universities and Colleges that do History Phds would have more information on funding your Phd. is for a History Phd at Bangor university, and it has a phone number and email to contact the tutor. On that page it mentions that you can get funding from the Arts & Humanities Research Board; ESRC (Mode B); and occasional scholarships and bursaries. The tutor would obviously know more about the occasional funding available. I also found at Aberystwyth University. is from Cardiff University and mentions funding near the bottom.] (]) 22:44, 15 September 2009 (UTC)


:'']'' by ], 1892. ] (]) 21:13, 14 January 2025 (UTC)
== Historical person obsessed with synchronizing clocks ==
:I can quickly go to the fiction stacks and pull a dozen books with photos in them. It is common that the photos are in the middle of the book because of the way the book pressing works. ] (]) 21:16, 14 January 2025 (UTC)
::Really? I would like to hear some examples of what you're referring to. Like Jack, I think the appearance of photos in (adult) fiction is rare. The novels of ] are one notable exception. --] 21:31, 14 January 2025 (UTC)
::: in a blog "with an emphasis on W.G. Sebald and literature with embedded photographs" may be of interest. ] (]) 23:44, 14 January 2025 (UTC)
:::: Fascinating. Thanks. So, this is actually a thing. Someone should add it to our ]. -- ] </sup></span>]] 18:30, 16 January 2025 (UTC)


:::The word "adult" did not come up until you just decided to use it there. I stated that there are many fiction paperback books with a middle section of graphics, which commonly include images of photographs. You replied that that is rare in adult fiction. ] (]) 00:42, 15 January 2025 (UTC)
I vaguely remember a story about a person, I think a historical person, possibly a king, who in his old age spent most of his time trying to keep all the clocks in his palace/residence in sync. The story fits nicely into a presentation that I'm working on, if only I were able to remember who this person was. Does the story ring a bell with anyone? --]<sup>]</sup> 15:45, 15 September 2009 (UTC)
::::]s, you mean? ]&nbsp;] 06:59, 15 January 2025 (UTC)
::::It was assumed that we are talking about adult fiction, yes. --] 09:06, 15 January 2025 (UTC)


:::::I found , a "bibliography of works of fiction and poetry... containing embedded photographs". ] (]) 12:28, 15 January 2025 (UTC)
:Probably not the historical figure you are looking for, but Doc Brown in ] seemed obsessed with syncing clocks. ] (]) 16:15, 15 September 2009 (UTC)
:::::I have no idea how to paste a photo in here. What I am referring to is fiction paperback novels. They don't have to be fiction. Some are non-fiction. That is not the point. The book is a normal paperback, but in the middle of the book the pages are not normal paperback paper. They are a more glossy paper and printed in color with pictures. There is usually four to eight pages of pictures embedded into the middle of the otherwise normal paperback novel. It is very common in young adult novels where they don't want a fully graphic book (like children's books), but they still want some pictures. Out of all the novels where there is a graphic insert in the middle, some of the graphics on those pages are photographs. I've been trying to find an image on Google of books where the center of the book is shiny picture papges, but it keeps pushing me to "Make a photo album book" services. ] (]) 13:34, 15 January 2025 (UTC)
::There are the ] and ] in ], but that is definitely fiction, and more about balancing time than synchronising it. ] (]) 16:31, 15 September 2009 (UTC)
::::::::*Clarification: "novel" refers only to works of fiction. --] (]) 21:42, 16 January 2025 (UTC)
:::Thanks both! I don't think it was fiction, but if it were, the story would be a lot older than these. --]<sup>]</sup> 18:13, 15 September 2009 (UTC)
:::::::Can you name one adult fiction (not YA or children's) novel which has a section of photographs in the middle? --] 14:00, 15 January 2025 (UTC)
::::Douglas Adams touches on this idea in one of the Dirk Gentley books. Can't remember which book was which, but it was the one with Reg, the time-traveller. Reg mentions that George IV (I think!) was obsessed with making sure time kept going forward as his past was so horrible he didn't want to revisit it. No idea if there's a historical basis for that, but that may be where you picked up the idea. ] (]) 18:38, 15 September 2009 (UTC)
::::::So having photos in the middle of a book is quite common in non-fiction (example: I have a bio of Winston Churchill that has photos of him during various stages of his life). Publishers do this to make printing easier (as the photos use a different paper, it is easier to bind them in the middle… and photos don’t reproduce as well on the paper used for text).
::::::It is certainly rarer for there to be photos in works of fiction, simply because the characters and places described in the story are, well, ''fictional''. But it obviously ''can'' be done (example: if the fictional story is set in a real place, a series of photos of that place might help the reader envision the events that the story describes). ] (]) 13:57, 15 January 2025 (UTC)
:::::::I just realized another area for confusion. I was personally considering a any image that looks like a photo to be a photo. But, others may be excluding fictional photographs and only considering actual photographs. If that is the case, the obvious example (still toung adult fiction) would be Carmen Sandiego books, which are commonly packed with photographs of cities, even if they do photoshop an image of the bad guy into them. ] (]) 18:57, 15 January 2025 (UTC)
::::::::]'s novel ''The Making of Another Major Motion Picture Masterpiece'' tells a story of adapting a comic book into a movie, and includes several pages of that comic book and related ones. (To be clear, these are fictitious comic books, a fiction within a fiction). Where the comic book was printed in color, the book contains a block of pages on different paper as is common in non-fiction.
:::::::::...and then of course there's ]'s novel '']'', which is a spoof biography of an artist, including purported photos of the main character and reproductions of his artworks (actually created by Boyd himself). As our article about the book explains, some people in the art world were fooled. ] (]) 10:30, 17 January 2025 (UTC)


= January 15 =
:] ] immediately springs to minds - but does seem to be the one, then there is ] who was mad, and introduced a tax on all clocks, then there is ] and ] both possibly fond of clocks - at a time when clocks where new scientific instruments, both having quite a few clocks. These might be it.] (]) 19:47, 15 September 2009 (UTC)


== Refusing royal assent ==
::There is an anecdote that ] was a perfectionist about time. When going for his daily walk at a certain hour the inhabitants of the town set their watches accordingly. It is said that he was always on time. Another anecdote, however, tells the story of Kant reading a book by Hume, which kept him indoors for several days. Unsurprisingly, when Kant stopped showing up on his daily walk, the people of the town became worried of Mr Kant's health status.] (]) 09:39, 16 September 2009 (UTC)


Are there any circumstances where the British monarch would be within their rights to withhold royal assent without triggering a constitutional crisis. I'm imagining a scenario where a government with a supermajority passed legislation abolishing parliament/political parties, for example? I know it's unlikely but it's an interesting hypothetical.
:::I remember the anecdote as saying that it was when Kant departed from his rigid daily schedule that the inhabitants of Koenigsberg first knew that the French revolution might be really serious... ] (]) 10:15, 16 September 2009 (UTC)
::::Found the source -- that's how it's told in Chapter 3 of '']'' by ]... ] (]) 10:26, 16 September 2009 (UTC)


If the monarch did refuse, what would happen? Would they eventually have to grant it, or would the issue be delegated to the Supreme Court or something like that? --] 14:38, 15 January 2025 (UTC)
:], I believe. ] (]) 10:43, 16 September 2009 (UTC)
:Thanks everyone. I've done a bit of googling based on the alternatives offered, without finding references to the story I'm looking for. I'm pretty sure it wasn't Kant. Ludwig rang a bell with me, but I've found no reference to the story itself, i.e. a person trying to syncronize the clocks just for the sake of it, doing a difficult but pointless task. Given that the story appears to be less well known that I thought, does anyone have suggestions for alternatives? A historical person doing a <strike>laborious</strike> '''meticulous''' task, just for the sake of getting it exactly right, even though it's pretty obvious that getting it exactly right is unimportant? --]<sup>]</sup> 12:50, 16 September 2009 (UTC)


:Our ] article says: {{xt|In 1914, George V took legal advice on withholding Royal Assent from the ]; then highly contentious legislation that the Liberal government intended to push through Parliament by means of the Parliament Act 1911. He decided not to withhold assent without "convincing evidence that it would avert a national disaster, or at least have a tranquillising effect on the distracting conditions of the time"}}. ] (]) 15:05, 15 January 2025 (UTC)
::I suppose Sisyphus wouldn't count, since his is not a voluntary task? ] (]) 13:28, 16 September 2009 (UTC)
:::Correct. Moreover, the task should be meticulous, with pointless attention to detail. --]<sup>]</sup> 19:09, 17 September 2009 (UTC)
:] famously went in the ]. --] 14:08, 16 September 2009 (UTC)


: Not British, but there was the 1990 case of King ], whose conscience and Catholic faith would not permit him to grant assent to a bill that would liberalise Belgium's abortion laws. A solution was found:
== Falsely claiming to have been awared medals/decorations in the armed forces... ==
:* (quote from article) In 1990, when a law submitted by Roger Lallemand and Lucienne Herman-Michielsens that liberalized Belgium's abortion laws was approved by Parliament, he refused to give royal assent to the bill. This was unprecedented; although Baudouin was de jure Belgium's chief executive, royal assent has long been a formality (as is the case in most constitutional and popular monarchies). However, due to his religious convictions—the Catholic Church opposes all forms of abortion—Baudouin asked the government to declare him temporarily unable to reign so that he could avoid signing the measure into law. The government under Wilfried Martens complied with his request on 4 April 1990. According to the provisions of the Belgian Constitution, in the event the king is temporarily unable to reign, the government as a whole assumes the role of head of state. All government members signed the bill, and the next day (5 April 1990) the government called the bicameral legislature in a special session to approve a proposition that Baudouin was capable of reigning again.
: There's no such provision in the UK Constitution as far as I'm aware, although Regents can be and have been appointed in cases of physical incapacity. -- ] </sup></span>]] 15:21, 15 January 2025 (UTC)


:::A more likely scenario in your hypothesis is that the Opposition could bring the case to the ] who have the power make rulings on constitutional matters; an enample was ]'s decision ]. 15:23, 15 January 2025 (UTC)
Is this illegal in the UK - like it is in the US, under the ]? --] (]) 18:19, 15 September 2009 (UTC)


:::There is the ability to delegate powers to ]. There are restrictions on what powers can be delegated in section 6(1) of the ], but I don't see anything prohibiting the monarch from delegating the power to grant Royal Assent. He could then temporarily absent himself from the UK (perhaps on an impromptu trip to another Commonwealth Realm) so that the Counsellors of State could grant such Assent during his absence. ] ] 15:40, 23 January 2025 (UTC)
:The only relevant act is the , which makes it illegal for a civilian to wear a military uniform (except during plays and the like). That includes "any dress having the appearance or bearing any of the regimental or other distinctive marks" which may arguably include medals, although I don't think it has been enforced in recent years. See ] for an example which included Misplaced Pages; he was not prosecuted. ] (]) 19:26, 15 September 2009 (UTC)


== Fratelli Gianfranchi ==
::Thanks. After happening across the US law today whilst researching something else, I was reminded of a man who used to drink in a bar where I worked (whom actually sounds a lot like this Mcilwraith character). This guy claimed to be ex Paratroop Regiment and that he'd been awarded the Victoria Cross for service in the Falklands after bayoneting 25 Argentine soldiers in their sleep whilst trapped behind enemy lines. Then he'd apparently worked for MI6, carrying out assassinations in various places around the world (but he wasn't really supposed to talk about it). At some point, he'd racked up a ludicrous number of kills as a sniper too. It completely astounded me that some people actually seemed to take the drunken, mendacious old fraud at his word. --] (]) 21:56, 15 September 2009 (UTC)


Can anyone find any information about Fratelli Gianfranchi, sculptor(s) of the ]?<ref>{{cite news |title=Daily Telegraph: A New Statue of Washington |url=https://www.newspapers.com/article/harrisburg-telegraph-a-new-statue-of-was/162933969/ |work=Harrisburg Telegraph |date=August 18, 1876 |location=] |page=1 |via=] |quote=The statue was executed by Fratelli Gianfranchi, of Carrara, Italy, who modeled it from Leutze's masterpiece}}</ref> I assume ] means brothers, but I could be wrong.
==Pact with devil - story==
{{reflist-talk}} ] (]) 15:31, 15 January 2025 (UTC)
Can anyone pin down this vaguely faust like story:
:"Fratelli Gianfranchi" would be translated as "Gianfranchi Brothers" with Gianfranchi being the surname. Looking at Google Books there seems to have existed a sculptor called Battista Gianfranchi from Carrara but I'm not finding much else. --] (]) 06:45, 16 January 2025 (UTC)
::The city of ] is famous for its ] which has been exploited since Roman times, and has a long tradition of producing sculptors who work with the local material. Most of these would not be considered notable as they largely produce works made on command. ] (]) 09:53, 16 January 2025 (UTC)
:::Thank you both, it is helpful to have confirmation that you couldn't find any more than I did. For what it's worth, I found Battista Gianfranchi and Giuseppe Gianfranchi separately in Google books. It is interesting that, of the references in the article, the sculptor is only named in an 1876 article and not in later sources. ] (]) 13:55, 16 January 2025 (UTC)
::::In the light of the above, the mentions in the article of "the Italian sculptor Fratelli Gianfranchi" should perhaps be modified (maybe ". . . sculptors Fratelli Gianfranchi (Gianfranchi Brothers)"), but our actual sources are thin and this would border on ].
::::FWIW, the Brothers (or firm) do not have an entry in the Italian Misplaced Pages, but I would have expected there to be Italian-published material about them, perhaps findable in a library or museum in Carrara. {The poster formerly known as 87.81.230.195} ] (]) 18:43, 16 January 2025 (UTC)
:::::I have added the translation for Fratelli Gianfranchi as a footnote. I agree that more information might be available in Carrara. ] (]) 20:42, 16 January 2025 (UTC)


= January 16 =
A man has a very harsh and bad life, suffering much (loss of parents, poverty etc), up till a point where somehow he meets the devil - he makes a pact the devil will give him all he wants in exchange for 30 years of his life, he accepts - and everything goes well... The twist is that the man discovers that the devil has tricked him, and taken the first 30 years of his life...
== Can I seek Chapter 15 protection while a case is ongoing in my home country or after it finished ? ==
Simple question. I don’t have Us citizenship, but I owe a large debt amount in New York that can’t legally exist in my home country where I currently live (at least where the 50% interest represent usury even for a factoring contract).


My contract only states that disputes should be discussed within a specific Manhattan court, it doesn’t talk about which is the applicable law beside the fact that French law states that French consumer law applies if a contract is signed if the client live in France (and the contract indeed mention my French address). This was something my creditors were unaware of (along with the fact it needs to be redacted in French to have legal force in such a case), but at that time I was needing legal protection after my first felony, and I would had failed to prove partilly non guilty if I did not got the money on time. I can repay what I borrowed with all my other debts but not the ~$35000 in interest.
The details may not be accurate - can anyone identify this (I wonder if something like the 'twighlight zone' or 'tales of the unexpected' did this story?)] (]) 19:54, 15 September 2009 (UTC)
:No answer yet. Maybe you would have more luck on entertainment desk? ] (]) 20:44, 17 September 2009 (UTC)


Can I use Chapter 15 to redirect in part my creditors to a bankruptcy proceeding in France or is it possible to file for Chapter 15 only once a proceeding is finished ? Can I use it as an individiual or is Chapter 15 only for businesses ? ] (]) 09:13, 16 January 2025 (UTC)
== Ramadan fasting at extreme latitudes ==
:We don't answer questions like that here. You should engage a lawyer. --] 09:23, 16 January 2025 (UTC)
:Chapter 15 bankruptcy does cover individuals and does include processes for people who are foreign citizens. ] (]) 11:24, 16 January 2025 (UTC)


= January 17 =
How do muslims in, say, northern Sweden (or any other place at a very northern or southern latitude) deal with ], especially during the local summer? What about fasting north or south of the polar circles when there's midnight sun? ] (]) 22:12, 15 September 2009 (UTC)
:I don't mean to be witty here, but what about on the Moon or in a spaceship? Obviously, there are many instances where ''normal'' times as they were known to man when bibles were written will not fit into what we know now. I'm answering from an Orthodox Jewish perspective, in which timing similarly plays a very important part of ritual observance, such as keeping the Sabbath and Jewish holidays, during which certain restrictions apply from sundown to sundown or from sunup to sundown. In Iceland, there are times when sunup occurs very soon after sundown (I think in the ballpark of an hour or so), and when ] went on the spaceshuttle Columbia, he was faced with these issues (even though he was not concerned, as he was not quite fully observant). So your question is a good one, and at least in Judaism, has been dealt with by a number of prominent Jewish thinkers and commentators. As that relates to Islam, I would probably say that it would not, because you would certainly not accept a Jewish ruling. But that's all I have to say. ''']''' <sup>(] | ])</sup> 02:33, 16 September 2009 (UTC)


== Raymond Smullyan and Ayn Rand ==
::I'm not sure about that, but for an even more extreme environment, how about ? ] (]) 02:28, 16 September 2009 (UTC)


Did ] ever directly discuss or mention ] or ]? I think he might have indirectly referenced her philosophy in a a fictional symposium on truthfulness where a speaker says that he(or she) is not as "fanatical" about being as selfish as possible as an earlier speaker who said he himself was a selfish bastard.] (]) 02:23, 17 January 2025 (UTC)
:::The articles on ] and the Islamic calendar are kind of vague about the range of Gregorian dates in which Ramadan can occur - but it's the 9th month in the Islamic lunar calendar, and although one of the links says it can occur from summer months to winter months, I don't think it literally occurs in either the dead of winter or the peak of summer, either of which would be a significant crimp in trying observe that month. I think it's typically in what we would think of as the fall, i.e. September-October-November. Obviously, a Muslim needs to weigh in here and educate all of us on this matter. ] <sup>'']''</sup> ] 02:37, 16 September 2009 (UTC)


:I guess not. Smullyan wrote so much that it is difficult to assert with certainty that he never did, but it has been pointed out by others that his ] philosophical stance is incompatible with Rand's Objectivism.<sup></sup> &nbsp;--] 12:23, 17 January 2025 (UTC)
::::It is for questions like this that I think the "Religion reference desk" was proposed. ] (]) 02:47, 16 September 2009 (UTC)
:::::To take a line straight from Groucho, "Oh, no, we're not going to go through all ''that'' again!" What's kind of distressing is that the articles on the lunar calendar are of no help - although it may be that the, shall we say "flexible" way the months are determined each year makes it perhaps a bit difficult. ] <sup>'']''</sup> ] 02:52, 16 September 2009 (UTC)
::::::From ''Historical Atlas of Islam'' by Malise Ruthven and Azim Nanji (2004) () I summarize as follows: There is more than one solution. Some Muslim clerics insist that as long as there is any time between sunrise and sunset, no matter how little, the fast must be observed according to the strict rules. If there is no such break, then the fast should follow the time of the closest city that does have such a break. Another view involves distinguishing between direct and indirect sunlight, though nothing is said on the page about what happens under heavy cloud cover. Yet another view says: “A Muslim living in the far north should follow the pattern of observance prevailing in the nearest Muslim majority country.” The short answer appears to be that the degree of strict observance of the rules of this fast by any individual is likely to be equivalent to the degree of that individual's strict observance of the rules in general.


= January 18 =
::::::The same text states that the lunar month of Ramadan may occur at any time during our solar year, moving through a 35-year cycle. ] (]) 03:25, 16 September 2009 (UTC)


== "The Narrow Way" issued to prisoners in 1916 ==
:::::::The last part is indeed mostly (our article says it's ~33 years) correct as a lunar year of 12 months is 354.37 days any pure ] drifts, in the 12 months case by about 11 or 12 days. (Obviously you could have a lunar calender with fewer or more months which would drift more or in a different direction.) ] calendars are obviously different. To give an idea, this year, Ramadan will ] on ~20th September next year 10th September. The precise date will vary from location to location including how the date is determined ] (]) 20:44, 16 September 2009 (UTC)


In his book '''', about prison life in England in 1916, the Quaker Hubert Peet says:
:::Your link doesn't work but I presume refers to ] for which the issue came up. . The guidelines published for him (I don't know if he did actually fast in the end) were to follow the schedule from his liftoff point if he choose to fast, which was not necessary since people traveling are not required to fast. You're also exempt if it's necessary for work etc. (If you can't fast you're supposed to make up for it when you can.) This is obviously an issue for people traveling on aeroplanes particularly westward. (For the crew they obviously have to ensure they are fit for duty and don't get too dehydated etc.) I believe it's common airlines from predominantly Muslim countries at least will aide those who wish to observe the fast by serving food again after the it comes time to break the fast if the passenger has missed an earlier meal and waking the passenger and serving food before it's time to start observing the fast. They may also provide ] or some other sort of wrapped snack to break the fast and announce when it's time since serving food is takes a while. (Obviously to avoid alienating their non Muslim passengers and Muslim passengers who choose not fast while traveling they will otherwise mostly observe the normal schedule.) I'm pretty sure I've experienced this myself before although it's been a while so can't remember it that well. <small>] is an interesting experience, they have prayers for a safe journey broadcast on the inflight entertainment system before takeoff and landing. Oh and for Malaysia Airlines and Brunei both IIRC, probably other airlines they show the direction of Mecca on the flight information display thing that you sometimes have on the in flight entertainment, showing the speed, direction, current location, altitude etc, estimate arrival time etc</Small> ] (]) 20:16, 16 September 2009 (UTC)


:On entry one is given a Bible, Prayer Book, and Hymn Book. In the ordinary way these would be supplemented by a curious little manual of devotion entitled “The Narrow Way,” but at the Scrubs Quakers were mercifully allowed in its place the Fellowship Hymn Book and the Friends’ Book of Discipline.
::This is an issue for Jews as well, for the onset of shabbat, and the like. I've also read discussions of the onset of Ramadan in Australia, because it is determined by the onset of the full moon, but the full moon where is not noted. In Australia that can be a couple of days different than in Mecca. Some Muslims observe it from the time it hits Mecca, others from the time it hits at the place of residence. The general notion is that as long as it is observed, few people are concerned by it. IIRC there was an article about shabbat in polar regions, but I can't remember what it was called. ] (]) 03:48, 16 September 2009 (UTC)
:::<small>I don't think you mean Australia and Mecca are a couple of days different. At most 24 hours. ] (]) 13:21, 16 September 2009 (UTC)</small>
::Here's an article about shabbat in the ] in ]. It's not the Muslim approach, but it discusses similar issues. ] (]) 03:56, 16 September 2009 (UTC)
:::Thanks for the answers so far, everyone. I think I'm getting the picture. ] (]) 12:56, 16 September 2009 (UTC)
:::Did you intend to link to ]? ] (]) 20:20, 16 September 2009 (UTC)


What was this book ''The Narrow Way''?
::It's well to keep in mind that in Muhammad's time and following, all the Muslims were in the middle east, and no one knew anything about the polar regions, let alone space travel. At some point, presumably, adjustments will have to be made to how the month's activities are honored. One hypothetical way would be to go by a Mecca-based sunrise-sunsit rather than local sunrise-sunset (adjusted for time zone, of course). I don't know that that has ever been proposed, though, that's just my idea. ] <sup>'']''</sup> ] 13:28, 16 September 2009 (UTC)
:::To extend ] comment above on the change in the end of Ramadan in 2009 and 2010, sets out its various aspects from 2009 to 2015, by which time the fasting occurs in June by the Julian calendar. ] (]) 02:04, 17 September 2009 (UTC)


I thought the question would be easy to answer if the book was standard issue, but I haven't found anything. (Yes, I'm aware that the title is a reference to Matthew 7:14.) ] (]) 03:46, 18 January 2025 (UTC)
Some answers on determining the prayer times (which subsequently determine the fasting times) at extreme latitudes are found , particularly Point 4 on that page. Basically their are two opinions on the matter: either follow Mecca's hours or follow the nearest populated place that has a clear distinction between night and day; so long as everyone in the extreme-latitude city follows the same rule it will be fine. Funny enough my sister is flying out to Dubai tomorrow on ], I'll be sure to ask her what they do on the plane w.r.t. ] (breaking the fast). As a traveller she's not obliged to fast tomorrow so she's decided not to. ] 22:37, 18 September 2009 (UTC)


:Letters of a Prisoner for Conscience Sake - Page 54 (Corder Catchpool · 1941, via Google books) says "The Narrow Way , you must know , is as much a prison institution as green flannel underclothing ( awfu ' kitly , as Wee Macgregor would say ) , beans and fat bacon , superannuated “ duster " -pocket - handkerchiefs , suet pudding ... and many other truly remarkable things !" so it does seem to have been standard issue. ] (]) 04:22, 18 January 2025 (UTC)
==What are the names of Charities owned by African Americans?==


:Google Books finds innumerable publishers' adverts for ''The Narrow Way, Being a Complete Manual of Devotion, with a Guide to Confirmation and Holy Communion'', compiled by E.B. . Many of them, of widely varying date, claim that the print run is in its two hundred and forty-fifth thousand. it's claimed that it was first published c. 1869, and have a copy of a new edition from as late as 1942. Apart from that, I agree, it's remarkably difficult to find anything about it. --] (]) 12:13, 18 January 2025 (UTC)
i have a list of non profit orgs, but i need a list of ones owned and started by african americans. i have one: Keep a Child Alive owned by alicia keys ?] (]) 23:26, 15 September 2009 (UTC
::You can for £5.99. ] (]) 15:30, 20 January 2025 (UTC)
: site might be useful. ] (]) 00:30, 16 September 2009 (UTC)
:{{small|Fun fact: a copy of ''The Narrow Way'' figures in ]'s novel '']''. ] (]) 22:26, 20 January 2025 (UTC)}}


= January 19 =
:Remember that no one, by definition, owns a non-profit charity.--] (]) 06:20, 16 September 2009 (UTC)


== Federal death penalty ==
:One of the most well-known that's strictly a charity (with no associated lobbying arm, as far as I'm aware) is the ], famously promoted by Dan Quayle... ] (]) 09:17, 16 September 2009 (UTC)


Is there a list of federal criminal cases where the federal government sought the death penalty but the jury sentenced the defendant to life in prison instead? I know ]'s case is one, but I'm unsure of any others. ] &#124; ] 01:41, 19 January 2025 (UTC)
= September 16 =


== Official portraits of Donald Trump's first presidency ==
== lens-less glasses worn for fashion ==


{{multiple image
Here in China young ladies (& very occasionally young men) are now wearing "frames" as a fashion accessory. Is this currently happening in any other countries? Can anyone help establish the origin of this fad? ] (]) 02:10, 16 September 2009 (UTC)<br />
| image1 = 20170607-OSEC-PJK-0061 (34770550600).jpg
'''EDIT TO ADD''' - in case it wasn't clear in my initial post, we're talking about glasses that lack any lens at all. Neither real nor fake - they are literally empty frames! Is this being seen anywhere else in the world? Or can I deem it a uniquely Chinese "achievement"? ] (]) 08:57, 16 September 2009 (UTC)
| alt1 = Yellow cartouche
:In the mid-1980s there was a brief and equally clueless California fad of "attitude glasses" with non-prescription plastic lenses in them. Stictly suburban. The empty format, freed of any intellectual or cultural residue, is a familiar characteristic of post-modern Eastern wannabe gimmicks: glassless frames capture the essence of this reverse-].--] (]) 06:10, 16 September 2009 (UTC)
| width1 = 413
| caption1 = *grim*
| image2 = Donald Trump official portrait (cropped).jpg
| alt2 = Official portrait?
| width2 = 200
| caption2 = *grin*
}}
Commons category '']'' only contains variations of the portrait with Donald Trump smiling. But '']'' only contains photos incorporating Trump's official portrait with a vigorous facial expression, which is otherwise not even included in Commons?! This seems inconsistent - what is the background and status of either photo? --] (]) 10:51, 19 January 2025 (UTC)


:The framed portraits hanging on the wall in these photos are an official portrait from December 15, 2016, of the then president-elect.<sup></sup> The one with bared teeth is from October 6, 2017, when Trump was in office.<sup></sup> For two more recent official mug shots, look . &nbsp;--] 12:31, 20 January 2025 (UTC)
:Senator ] wore enormous thick-framed glasses for most of his career. Then his vision got worse to the point where he had to switch to contact lenses, which he did. But he kept wearing empty frames with plain glass in them over the contacts, since people were used to seeing him with those frames. ] (]) 07:56, 16 September 2009 (UTC)
::Ok, thank you. Do you know why the president-elect photo is not even uploaded in Commons? Shouldn't it be included in ]? --] (]) 16:00, 20 January 2025 (UTC)
:::The most plausible reason that it was not uploaded is that no one missed it. Among those aware of its existence and having the wherewithal to find it on the Web and to upload it to the Commons, no one may have realized it had not already been uploaded. Or they may not have felt a need; there is no shortage of images in the relevant articles.
:::Strictly speaking, it does not belong in ], as Trump was not yet president. However, ] features nothing but lugubrious portraits of the president-reelect. &nbsp;--] 22:56, 20 January 2025 (UTC)


= January 20 =
:As the previous replies have suggested, it's glasses with plain lenses which have previously been a minor fashion trend in the U.S. Empty frames without any lenses were pretty much novelty-store gag gifts and comedian's accessories, as far as I'm aware (Jerry Lewis sometimes wore them, and some comedians slipped them on as part of their act, and then said "Would you hit a man wearing glasses?" etc.). ] have no lenses... ] (]) 09:09, 16 September 2009 (UTC)


== Trattato delle attinie, ed osservazioni sopra alcune di esse viventi nei contorni di Venezia, accompagnate da 21 tavole litografiche del Conte Nicolò Contarin ==
:While I haven't noticed any trend towards this in the UK, the comic actor ] <s>used to</s> wears thick black glasses which acted as hearing aids and had no lenses. --] (]) 09:55, 16 September 2009 (UTC)
::I actually saw this for the very first time just the other day! On my way home from work on a tram in Melbourne, Australia. It was a young asian guy, apart from the glasses he was dressed quite hip. There's lot's of Asian students in Melbourne, so I suppose there's half a chance it will take off here. ] (]) 04:18, 17 September 2009 (UTC)


I am trying to find the illustration’s description from the original source: ''Trattato delle attinie, ed osservazioni sopra alcune di esse viventi nei contorni di Venezia, accompagnate da 21 tavole litografiche del Conte Nicolò Contarin'' including species name and description for these sea anemones: https://www.arsvalue.com/it/lotti/541811/contarini-nicolo-bertolucci-1780-1849-trattato-delle-attinie-ed-osservazio . I requested it on the resource request page but was not able to find where in the source these illustrations are or where their descriptions are. It doesn’t help that I can’t read Italian. ] (]) 00:11, 20 January 2025 (UTC)
:There was a ] fad in the late 50's in the United States. It was not very wide spread and didn't last long - transitioning into similarly shaped sunglasses, which then transitioned to the grossly oversized sunglasses of the 60's. However, when modern people dress in what they believe to be 50's style, it is very common for the women to wear cat eye glasses.
:Apparently you need to locate an occurrence of "(T<small><small>AV</small></small> VII)" or "(T<small><small>AV</small></small> XII)" in the text. --] (]) 12:04, 20 January 2025 (UTC)
:{{ec}} References to the illustration are in the form "{{serif|tavolo VII}}" or "{{serif|tav. VII}}". So, for example, page 99 refers to {{serif|fig. 1 e 2}}. The text refers to the development of the actinae being studied without precise identification, specifically to their sprouting new tentacles, not being (''contra'' ]) a prolongation of the skin of the base, but from parts of the body. The same page has a reference to {{serif|fig. 3}}. &nbsp;--] 12:17, 20 January 2025 (UTC)
::Sorry where are you seeing this page 99 you are referring to? ] (]) 20:47, 20 January 2025 (UTC)
:::Oops, I forgot to link. It is (and also ). &nbsp;--] 22:42, 20 January 2025 (UTC)


== Finance == == Pu Yi ==
<s>Although member of the Chinese Communist Party, the last Emperor was an anti-communist and counter-revolutionnair until his death? <!-- Template:Unsigned IP --><small class="autosigned">—&nbsp;Preceding ] comment added by ] (]) 17:26, 20 January 2025 (UTC)</small></s><small>Block evasion. ]<small>]</small> 18:58, 20 January 2025 (UTC)</small>
:I imagine that during the ], it was wise to keep one's opinions to one's self. ] (]) 17:31, 20 January 2025 (UTC)
::{{small|] did apparently not get the memo. &nbsp;--] 22:32, 20 January 2025 (UTC)}}
::] can give psychological pressure on the individual and affect his or her behaviours. ] (]) 09:38, 21 January 2025 (UTC)


= January 21 =
Hello, I have some questions regarding ].


== text of executive order ==
#What is '''Production output''' and how it is measured?
#'''Revenue''' means the total amount of money a company earned through selling its products. Fine. '''Operating income''' means earnings before interest and taxes (EBIT), fine. As per the article ], '''Operating Income = Operating Revenue – Operating Expenses'''. Is '''operating revenue''' and '''revenue''' same?
#If EBIT = Operating revenue – Operating expenses, then I have to assume '''operating expense''' ''excludes'' taxes. But according to the article ], Operating expenses include ''license fees'', ''property taxes'' etc. Then how operating expense excludes tax?
#Does '''Net income = Revenue - (EBIT + Tax)'''? Is this formula right?
#Some countries have high corporation tax rates, while some countries have very low corporation tax rate. For example in ], corporation tax and income tax is very low, 10%. If so, then why large multinational companies do not move their global headquarters to such ]s?
#I have a bit confusion over ] and ]. ] is the owner of ]. Thus the total income of Microsoft before paying taxes is the total income of Bill Gates, since he himself is the owner of the business. Now if corporation tax is taken from Microsoft, this means tax on the income of Gates, am I right? Ok, if Microsoft is a publicly traded company, then corporation tax means tax on the income of its shareholders, right? And if so, then what is the difference between corporation tax and income tax here? ] (]) 03:57, 16 September 2009 (UTC)
: On the last point - according to ], Bill Gates only owns 8% of Microsoft. In any case a company is generally considered as a separate legal entity, so its income is not considered part of its owners' income, even if it's owned by a single person. The owner would receive income from the company as some combination of salary and ]s. ] (])


Hi. On 2025-01-20, POTUS signed an ] titled "Ending Birthright Citizenship for Children of Illegal Immigrants". This event has been reported by virtually every major news outlet in the world.
::1. Not sure - probably refers to amount of goods sold during the period. Have you tried google? Revenue would be a much better measure of output anyway.
::2. '''Operating revenue''' would be revenue from operations. This would be less than '''Revenue''' if the company classifies income from peripheral activities as "Revenue" and it would depend on reporting standards.
::3. Property tax is is not the same as a company tax, which a company pays based on its profits for the period. See ] for details.
::4. No. Net Income = EBIT - Interest - Taxes
::5. Have a look at ]. See for another take on the matter. Moving a part of a company to another country results in various administrative inefficiencies due to, for example, a lack of skills and other resources in that country. Basically, if an entity wants to sell its goods in the US and earn its profits in the US, it would have to pay US tax rates.
::6. Even if Bill Gates was the only owner of Microsoft (he isn't), the company and the man are separate taxable entities. The company declares an income and is subject to pay taxes on that income at the corporate tax rate. Being a shareholder, Gates would receive income in the form of dividends and he would have to pay taxes on that income at his income tax rate. ] (]) 09:35, 16 September 2009 (UTC)


It is now 2025-01-20 9PM Washington time, and I have been trying to find the exact text, or even portions of its text, for a while now, to no avail.
== A question on postmodern depiction in literature.... ==


1. Is the full text of this executive order available to the general public?
Can salman rushdie's short story, At the auction of the ruby slippers, be considered a post modern depiction of western culture? why?


This ] site claims that: "All Executive Orders and Proclamations issued after March 1936 are required by law to be published in the Federal Register."
And if u are unable to answer that question because you haven't read At the auction of the ruby slippers, could u please explain what would be/consist a postmodern depiction in literature?


2. Assuming that the above claim is true, is there any requirement or guideline on how quickly an EO is published after it has been signed by POTUS? ] (]) 02:22, 21 January 2025 (UTC)


:Nevermind. The full text was posted some time around 2025-01-20 8:45PM Washington time. None of the news agencies reporting before that got the title right, so I'm guessing that the title of the EO was only released when its full text was released. ] (]) 02:49, 21 January 2025 (UTC)
thank you. kindly help me ans this qn asap as it is urgent.
::As I read the order literally, it implies that persons to which birthright citizenship is denied by force of Section 2 (a) of the order can also not be naturalized at a later date (or, if they can, no department or agency of the United States government shall issue documents recognizing the acquired citizenship). &nbsp;--] 10:46, 22 January 2025 (UTC)
Paul ] (]) 04:51, 16 September 2009 (UTC)
:I guess you had better drop that class. ] (]) 05:02, 16 September 2009 (UTC)


== Deadline for ratification of amendments to the US constitution ==
::Have you tried reading our articles on ] and ]? While postmodernism is hard to define, the thread running through it is the sort of "self-awareness" or ] the story seems to display. Consider something like the film ]. It is clearly postmodern because, besides being a horror film, it is itself a self-referential critique of the horror genre. Very postmodern sort of thing. Also see the film ], same deal but with westerns. It is at once a western, but also obviously it plays around with the conventions of Westerns in such a way that you know that the filmmakers are saying "We know this is how a Western formula should work, but we are intentionally screwing with the formula in a way that makes it obvious we are doing so". All postmodernist works contain a similar sort of internal irony in that way. ] is MEGA postmodern, like postmodern-with-a-sledgehammer sort of postmodern. Much of postmodernism is a big "in-joke" and you need to know the background to get the joke. If the first western you ever saw was Unforgiven, you would completely miss the postmodern aspects of it. If you want to "get" postmodernism, you need to be familiar enough with the material the story is commenting on. So, ''if'' Rushdie's story is a post-modern depiction on western culture, you need to ask, what is Rushdie ''saying'' about western culture in his story. Not overtly in the text, but in the sorts of ways that it ''exagerates'' or uses aspects of western culture in ''ironic'' ways. Exageration and irony are very postmodern tools... --]''''']''''' 05:13, 16 September 2009 (UTC)


Hello, and thank you for this opportunity to ask the experts. There's been talk recently about the proposed ] to the US constitution after former president Biden stated the he considered the amendment to be ratified and part of the US constitution, as it had been ratified by 38 states, reaching the bar of three quarters of the states the Article 5 of the US constitution sets.
Its a language arts class which is a compulsory subject in my school lol... yeah, at the auction of the ruby slippers satirizes capitalism extensively such as where even like the taj mahal, the sphinx and so on are sold at the grand auction. Through doing so it depicts western culture of being overtly capitalistic and shows rushdies negative attitude towards it. He depicts the setting of the story to be a choatic anarchy-filled world were people live in fear in "bunkers". The society depicted to be highly relativistic and emotionless in some parts. But at the same time it also shows a lack of identity and a search for identity in the text as everyone is there to try and get the ruby slippers of Dorothy from the wizard of oz for themselves to return to a "state of normalcy" or home, which i believe is postmodern idea as well as a postcolonial mentality right? So should we say that it is a postmodern depiction of western culture to show salman rushdie's attitude towards western culture? or should we present the idea in another way like saying that it shows the writer's postcolonial sentiments towards the western culture by his critical depiction of it in the text? <span style="font-size: smaller;" class="autosigned">—Preceding ] comment added by ] (]) 08:19, 16 September 2009 (UTC)</span><!-- Template:UnsignedIP --> <!--Autosigned by SineBot-->Paul ] (]) 10:19, 16 September 2009 (UTC)


The National Archives disagreed and pointed to a deadline (later extended) for ratification set by Congress; since the required number of states had not been reached by the final deadline and since the deadline had not been extended further, it said, the amendment could not be considered ratified.
:Actually, in that specific case, the postmodernism aspect is the use of the Wizard of Oz as a means of providing the criticism. Remember the importance of the "in-joke" to postmodernism... If one had never seen the Wizard of Oz, then the ruby slippers reference would mean nothing. It is specifically the ''use of'' the commonly recognized motif in such a way that it assumes the audience automatically understands it that is the postmodern angle here, not JUST the use of satire... --]''''']''''' 12:13, 16 September 2009 (UTC)


This appears to be plainly at odds with the text of ], which contains no mention of Congress being able to impose a deadline, or in fact any other requirement, for the ratification process. The best argument I've seen in non-scholarly sources is, in essence, that "the 5th Amendment is silent on this", but that strikes me as unconvincing. The 5th prescribes a process, and there is no reason (that is readily apparent to me) to presume that this process may be changed by Congress in either direction. Just like Congress may not declare that ratification by one half of the states (rather than three quarters) is sufficient, it may not impose that additional steps must be taken or additional hurdles passed: say, it may not require that four fifths of the states must ratify and that three quarters is not enough. The Constitution prescribes what conditions are necessary for an Amendment to become part of the Constitution — but it also dictates that when these conditions are met, this does happen.
== leftovers worth today ==


As such I find the National Archives' position to be inconsistent with the Constitution and the 5th, and Congress's attempt to impose an additional requirement in the form of a deadline strikes me as out of line with the Constitution, rendering said additional requirement null and void.
When ] died in 1979, she had about $3,500 on deposit in her bank accounts. Who inherited the money since she had no other living heirs after her son, ], was killed in a private airplane crash in 1972? What would $3,500 in 1979 be in today's money?] (]) 05:50, 16 September 2009 (UTC)


''That said,'' and this is where my question comes in, I am not a legal expert. I haven't studied law, nor do I work in or with law in any way; I am merely curious. And although appeals to authority are fallacious as far as logical reasoning is concerned, I don't doubt that the National Archives (as well as, presumably, Congressional staff) have considered this matter and concluded that yes, a) the imposition of a deadline by Congress, above and beyond the process prescribed by the 5th, is constitutional; b) meeting of said deadline is then an additional condition for ratification; and c) since this deadline has not been met here, the ERA is not part of the Constitution.
:If you follow the first link in the ], it says her last will made bequests to friends (so those friends were her heirs). But it doesn't say who they were or what specifically happened to the money. According to the on the US ] web site, $3,500 US in 1979 equals about $10,380 today. --Anonymous, 08:24 UTC, which equals about 08:24 UTC today, September 16, 2009.


And my question is: why? On what legal basis? Surely Congress cannot create additional requirements out of whole cloth; there must be some form of authorization in it. What's more, since we are talking about a process prescribed by the Constitution itself, said authority must itself be grounded in the Constitution, rather than taking the form of e.g. a simple law (Congress cannot arbitrarily empower itself to change the rules and processes laid down by the Constitution).
::Of course, if left in a simple savings account, you would also have to factor in, on top of inflation, ], which could make $3,500 worth considerably more than even THAT. --]''''']''''' 12:10, 16 September 2009 (UTC)


I would be very grateful if someone with a background in law (professional or otherwise) could explain this to me. Thank you very much! ] (]) 07:42, 21 January 2025 (UTC)
::Well, not really. $10,380 today has the buying power of $3,500 then, but in lieu of Jayron's comment about interest, $3,500 (in actual money) then is still just $3,500 today. The money itself does not magically multiply along with inflation. Even with compounding interest, the buying power has likely decreased -- banks are not in the habit of risklessly outpacing inflation in their savings accounts. &mdash; ] 14:10, 16 September 2009 (UTC)
:I ain't no lawyer, but as I recall, the deadline was stated within the amendment proposal itself. That was the case with a few other amendments also, but they were ratified within the time limit, so there was no issue. It's possible someone will take this issue to court, and ultimately the Supreme Court would have to decide if that type of clause is valid. On the flip side, there is the most recent amendment, which prohibits Congress from giving itself a raise without an intervening election of Representatives. That one was in the wind for like 200 years, lacking a deadline. When it was finally ratified, it stood. ←] <sup>'']''</sup> ]→ 11:31, 21 January 2025 (UTC)
::Thank you very much for your reply, much appreciated! I didn't know the deadline was in the proposal itself. I'm not sure I'm convinced that this should make a difference, since for as long as the proposed Amendment is no part of the Constitution, it really is ''not'' part of the Constitution and should not be able to inform or affect other provisions of the Constitution. That said I of course agree that it would take the Supreme Court to decide the issue for good. Thanks again! ] (]) 16:59, 21 January 2025 (UTC)


:::<small>The ] may be quite busy with executive orders for a while. Quite possible, that the ] has to appoint another 6 or 12 judges to cope with all that work load. --] (]) 18:44, 21 January 2025 (UTC)</small>
:::He's right. In a savings account, paying 2% interest (a generous amount, based on my very unscientific random poll of published rates), and compounded monthly $3,500 would grow to $6,374.23 in 30 years. Since you would need $10,380 in current cash to equal the purchasing power of $3,500 in 1979 cash, that would mean that you actually lost roughly $4,000/10,380 or 39% of its value. To break even with the 30 year inflation rate, you would need a savings account that paid roughly 3.63% interest. These calculations can be checked using . The highest published rate I can find for a "normal" savings account is 2.27%; however that rate requires a minimum balance of $100,000. Most savings accounts with a minimum balance requirement below $3,500 seem to be paying out in the 2% range. So there ya go. If you leave your money in a straight savings account, long term, you are losing purchasing power. --]''''']''''' 03:39, 17 September 2009 (UTC)
:::The courts in general views these things as ]s. <span style="font-family: Cambria;"> ] (])</span> 21:59, 21 January 2025 (UTC)
::The deadline for the ERA was mentioned in a resolving clause before the text of the amendment itself. In other cases, such as the ], the deadline was contained in the amendment itself. Whether this makes any practical difference is a question for the courts. --] (]) (]) 13:51, 22 January 2025 (UTC)
: I don't understand why it is the National Archives rather than a legal/constitutional authority such as the Supreme Court that gets to decide whether a proposed amendment has become ratified or not, ie. become law or not. -- ] </sup></span>]] 21:09, 21 January 2025 (UTC)
:::There is the Executive, in this case the National Archives, doing what the Chief Executive ordered them to do. And there is Congress, which set the rules. This sounds like a ]. <span style="font-family: Cambria;"> ] (])</span> 21:59, 21 January 2025 (UTC)
::By a that took effect in 1984, the task of certifying ratifications of amendments to the US Constitution has been given to the ], which is why the interpretation of the National Archives (that is, the Archivist) matters. One might argue that this statute is unconstitutional, as the Constitution does not include a provision requiring certification for ratification to take effect, unlike for other federal processes that depend on the outcomes from the several states. AFAIK the constitutionality of the statute, or any of its predecessors (like ) has never been challenged in court. &nbsp;--] 10:15, 22 January 2025 (UTC)
::: I see. Thank you, Lambiam. -- ] </sup></span>]] 11:20, 22 January 2025 (UTC)
::: But of course there must always be some form of official certification. That would be the case for any law passed to a state governor or the president for signing, just as it must be for a constitutional change. Otherwise, ''anyone'' could claim that a proposed constitutional amendment has been ratified by a sufficient number of states and must now become part of the law of the USA. Surely the system depends on not just ''anyone'' claiming this, but a properly constituted authority with the legal power/responsibility to make such a certification. -- ] </sup></span>]] 06:35, 23 January 2025 (UTC)
::::Note that there was no certification procedure for the original ]; actually, the amendment provision of the ], which required unanimous approval of the states, was bypassed. I don't think there was already one in place for the ] either – when Congress met on on January 18, 1792, the President simply informed them that he had "a copy of an exemplified copy of an Act of the Legislature of Vermont, ratifying" the amendements,<sup></sup> which implied a sufficient number of instruments of ratification had been received. The procedure for the ratification of the electoral votes in presidential elections was only specified in the ]; the ] managed to do without. I agree, though, that there ''ought'' to be an official procedure for the ratification of constitutional amendments, but is the ability of Congress to inspect . The question is, is Congress passing (by simple majorities) a bill that such and such procedure shall be it, which is then signed into law by the President, enough to make it official and binding?
::::The US Constitution does not define who is "subject to the jurisdiction" of the United States. At the moment this is a hot issue. If Congress passes a bill, next signed into law, declaring that the definition is made by ], is the issue thereby settled? &nbsp;--] 16:35, 23 January 2025 (UTC)
:::::It's not settled until the Supreme Court says it is. ←] <sup>'']''</sup> ]→ 00:03, 24 January 2025 (UTC)


= January 22 =
But what if $3,500 were in checking accounts in 1979? What would that be worth today?] (]) 04:17, 17 September 2009 (UTC)


== Sir John Simon's soul ==
:You mean, like a standard no-interest-at-all checking account? It would be worth $3,500 exactly. In that case, its worth exactly what it would be worth in bills. If you took $3,500 in hundred dollar bills and stuffed it into coffee cans, in 30 years it is worth the same amount. The numbers on the front of the bills don't change. What changes is ''the amount of stuff you can buy with those bills'' which is what inflation means. The value of cash ''goes down'' over time; so that $3,500 isn't WORTH $10,380, but that it TAKES $10,380 to buy the same amount of stuff that $3,500 bought 30 years ago. If you want to look at how much $3,500 in TODAYS money would have been worth in 1979, you would need to take the inverse of the relationship. Since inflation is roughly 10,380/3,500 = 296%, then today $3,500 buys only about 1/3rd as much stuff today as it did in 1979. So, in a real sense, $3,500 left in a no-interest checking account for 30 years would be worth only about 33% of its original value. --]''''']''''' 12:26, 17 September 2009 (UTC)


"] has sat on the fence so long that the iron has entered into his soul" is a quotation attributed to ]. I have been unable to come up with a definitive source, and neither ] (in ''The Chancellors''), nor Duncan Brack (in ''The Dictionary of Liberal Quotations'') have been able to either. Can the RefDeskers do better? Thank you. <small>I felt ''sure'' I'd asked this here before, but I cannot find any trace of it in the archives. </small> ] (]) 18:49, 22 January 2025 (UTC)
::I seem to recall that interest rates today are much lower then they would have been in the 1970s and 1980s, back when a mortgage of 15% was the norm as opposed to 5-6%. I would presume that savings account interest would also be higher, though I do not know how much higher. ] (]) 14:00, 17 September 2009 (UTC)
:I looked into this question a while ago. The earliest evidence I could find came from a diary entry by ] for 14th December 1912:
::The other day ] told me a good story of a member who, when speaking in the House of Commons, remarked, "Mr. So-and-So has sat for so long on the fence that the iron has entered into his soul".
:It's . Shame that no-one's named. --] (]) 20:38, 22 January 2025 (UTC)
:Both parties were named by ] . Google Books also claims to have it in a version naming Lloyd George and Simon in a 1931 number of the ''New Statesman'', but I find their dating of "Snippet view" periodicals unreliable. --] (]) 21:03, 22 January 2025 (UTC)
:I found a 1922 case of "Who was it who said of a Free Church leader: "he has sat on the fence so long that the iron has entered into his soul"?". ] (]) 01:33, 23 January 2025 (UTC)
::Ha! The Spring 1905 number of ''Forest Leaves'' magazine ( at vol. II, no. 2, p. 16) gives us this: "] said that Sir ] 'had sat so long on the fence that the iron had entered into his soul.'" A rare example, then, of ] in reverse. --] (]) 08:11, 23 January 2025 (UTC)
:: tells us that Churchill said this at a meeting of the Bow and Bromley Conservative Association in, apparently, April 1905. --] (]) 10:04, 23 January 2025 (UTC)
:::Oh well done! I'd always rather associated it with Manchuria. Lloyd George does have a certain gravitational pull for put-downs. I can't quite see him actually nicking one of Churchill's, and I think he would not want to associate himself, even indirectly, with such a negative comment about CB. I'm reminded by ] that it is an echo of Psalm 105:18 in the Prayer Book. <small>If I were Lawrence Frances Flick I would be VERY careful about the choice of type-face for my bookmarks</small> ] (]) 10:58, 23 January 2025 (UTC)
:::I found the ''Forest Leaves'' version (with a couple more from the column) in ''The Mail'' (Dublin) 4 January 1905. Interestingly, there was an article in lots of local papers in January 1905 which mention the iron entering Lloyd George's soul as a result of how power is abused in the hands of an ascendant Church. ] (]) 11:16, 23 January 2025 (UTC)
::::Interesting. Got a link to the ''Mail'' version? --] (]) 11:31, 23 January 2025 (UTC)
:::(ec) The says that Mr Churchill made the dig at CB "at Bow, February 19, 1902". Dublin ''Mail'' 4 Jan 1905 ] (]) 11:35, 23 January 2025 (UTC)
:::The "iron entered his/my/our soul(s)" trope seems very common at the time, usually of course in a more positive sense. ] (]) 11:35, 23 January 2025 (UTC)
::::And here is a report of Churchill addressing the Annual Meeting of the Bow and Bromley Conservative Association from the ''Derby Daily Telegraph'' Thursday 20 February 1902 . ] (]) 11:39, 23 January 2025 (UTC)
::::The report appears in many local papers. The report in the '''' says CB has NOT (my emphasis) sat so long on the fence that the iron has entered his soul. ] (])
:::::If you have access to a copy it might be worth taking a look at the eight-volume ''Winston S. Churchill: His Complete Speeches, 1897-1963'', edited by Robert Rhodes James. --] (]) 14:14, 23 January 2025 (UTC)
::::::Not in , where it should be. ] (]) 18:11, 23 January 2025 (UTC)
::The anecdote is told in a Lloyd George–John Simon version on page 472 of '']'' issue of October 17, 1931:
:::{{tq|Sir John Simon's acidity of temperament and capacity for being a little in several camps but beloved by none led his late chief to remark—or so I'm told—that "Sir John has sat so long on the fence, that the iron has entered into his soul." {{quad}}{{quad}}{{quad}}{{smallcaps|Critic.}}}}<sup></sup>
:: one can verify, in spite of the snippetness of the permitted views, that this indeed the issue of this date. So it is indeed true that Lloyd George "is said" (or, more precisely, "has been said") to have commented this – although using a slightly different word order and punctuation than the quotation in our article. It is, of course, by no means sure that he <u>actually</u> has done so. &nbsp;--] 14:55, 23 January 2025 (UTC)
::: it is on Archive.org. It is Volume II Number 34, despite what Google claims. ] (]) 18:04, 23 January 2025 (UTC)
:::On the other hand, the Churchill/Campbell-Bannerman version was as late as 1950, so the two variants co-existed for many years. --] (]) 17:13, 23 January 2025 (UTC)


= January 23 =
At the end of '']'', when the announcer said she had almost $3,500 on deposit in her bank accounts at the time of her death, he didn't say whether they were checking or savings accounts. Let's say if $3,500 were on deposit in both checking and savings accounts in 1979, would value have increased or decreased in today's money?] (]) 22:37, 17 September 2009 (UTC)


== Marco Guidetti ==
:We've noted each case above: both would have decreased in buying power (I dislike the vagueness of "value" in this case), with the checking account decreasing more. &mdash; ] 13:07, 18 September 2009 (UTC)


Who was Marco Guidetti in relation to ]? ] wrapper says "Marco Guidetti Pentera de Tomaso", but my search didn't yield any meaningful results for him, including books. My guess , but not sure. ]<sup>]</sup> 10:45, 23 January 2025 (UTC)
Let's try this. In 1999, a single strand of 41 natural and graduated pearls once belonging to Barbara Hutton was auctioned and sold by Christie's Geneva for $1,476,000. In 2006 a single Imperial Qing Dynasty porcelain bowl, also once owned by Barbara Hutton, was auctioned and sold by Christie's Hong Kong for a record-breaking price of $22,240,000. Where did the money from those sales go to? What would $1,476,000 in 1999 be in today's money? What would $22,240,000 in 2006 be in today's money?] (]) 15:40, 18 September 2009 (UTC)


:The creator(s) of these ] wrappers misspelled "Pantera", so they were not overly careful. Perhaps they misinterpreted the name of the author of the photograph as being the name of the car model. &nbsp;--] 15:26, 23 January 2025 (UTC)
:The money presumably went to her estate (or to whomever presently owned the items, your use of "once belonging to" doesn't make it clear that stuff was still belonging to Hutton at the time of auction). As for the rest, you can use the linked above to note the change in buying power. The actual money collected from the sales does not rise with inflation, naturally. &mdash; ] 16:11, 18 September 2009 (UTC)


:One possibility is that the particular vehicle shown was owned by a Marco Guidetti, possibly the movie designer and art director of that name who worked on Mad Max and other films: IMDb link (unreliable source) . Relatedly, he may instead have been involved in designing the model's styling. {The poster formerly known as 87.81.230.195} ] (]) 15:57, 23 January 2025 (UTC)
I used the calculator. $3,500 in 1979 would be $10,405.22 in today's money. $1,476,000 in 1999 would be 1,912,190.78 in today's money. As for $22,240,000 in 2006, I tried to calculate that, but they said an error occured. The original sum has to be $10,000,000 or less. So what would the last sum be in today's money? As I remember, I read Barbara Hutton had made bequests to friends in her last will and her remaining jewelry, furniture and other valuable items were privately sold or auctioned.] (]) 20:58, 18 September 2009 (UTC)


:A Marco Guidetti is credited to authoring and photographing and a Marco Guidetti also authored . So it appears likely it is the name of the photographer as suggested by Lambiam when the gum was recently reintroduced, although this doesn't rule out the alternative possibilities that they are the car's owner or its designer as suggested by The poster formerly known as 87.81.230.195. ] (]) 16:59, 23 January 2025 (UTC)
== Christopher H. Clark ==
::We also haven't ''yet'' ruled out the author/photographer/car designer(?) and the film designer being the same person, although the car originated arond 1970 and film guy's career seems to have started around 2003. Of course, 'Marco ]' cannot be that uncommon a name in Italy. {The poster formerly known as 87.81.230.195} ] (]) 19:42, 23 January 2025 (UTC)


== Australian Antarctic Territory population ==
Dear Sirs:


What was the population of the ] in the ]? I assumed this would easily be discoverable with a Google search, but I couldn't find this information from the ]. Since the census counts people where they are on census night (and not where they live permanently), since ] is inhabited year-round, and since the AAT is considered an external territory of Australia, the AAT should have been covered by the census (comparable to Christmas Island, the Cocos, etc) and should have had a non-zero population on census night. ] (]) 19:46, 23 January 2025 (UTC)
I am a descendant of Christopher H. Clark.


:The external territories are listed here: . Quoting our article "Australia is an original signatory to the Antarctic Treaty of 1959. Under section 4, all territorial claims are held in abeyance." Which would appear to explain why it's not listed. ] (]) 20:35, 23 January 2025 (UTC)
He was a Congressman from Virginia from 1804 to 1806 and died November 21, 1828.


: "Expeditioners to Australian bases in the Australian Antarctic Territory (and other locations) are included in the Census. Their 'place of enumeration' is an Offshore Statistical Area Level 1 (SA1) in Tasmania." -- ] </sup></span>]] 20:45, 23 January 2025 (UTC)
The Misplaced Pages article states he was "interred in a private cemetery at Old Lawyers Station near Lynchburg, Virginia".


== Explain meme? ==
The family believes this referrence to be the Clark family cemetery.


I understand what the person is trying to imply about Elon Musk, but I don't understand what the second picture is getting at. Is that Prince Harry and is that relevant? I'm pretty clueless so be patient. Thanks. ] (]) 23:22, 23 January 2025 (UTC)
Can you supply the supporting citation for the referrence in the Misplaced Pages article for the burial location ?
:Chris Hemsworth. The second image is a reverse angle showing the listener's response, and the meme is all about a good example of a facial expression expressing doubt. Originally the response by the listener was "is he though?". See . -- ] <sup>]</sup> 00:12, 24 January 2025 (UTC)


= January 24 =
Thank you for any assistance.

Robert C. Light,Jr.
<span style="font-size: smaller;" class="autosigned">—Preceding ] comment added by ] (]) 14:19, 16 September 2009 (UTC)</span><!-- Template:UnsignedIP --> <!--Autosigned by SineBot-->

:The source, according to the article ], is the ]. The specific entry is found . ] (]) 15:16, 16 September 2009 (UTC)

== Star ratings for novels, like those for movies ==

Is there any website that gives star ratings for novels and other narratives, in the same way that movies are rated? Whoa! - I do already know that Amazon does them, but that website(s) is not really suited to browsing by genre etc. Thanks. ] (]) 18:57, 16 September 2009 (UTC)

: There's () which is browsable by genre. Best, ] (]) 20:00, 16 September 2009 (UTC)
::Note that Goodreads, like Misplaced Pages, relies on its content from the readers of the site. The ratings don't come from critics, but from the general site user. ] (]) 22:20, 16 September 2009 (UTC)
:There are other user-rated websites that have star-ratings. LibraryThing ] is my favourite, but there's also Shelfari, which is equally popular. Both have tags (e.g. sci-fi, romance, American, cooking, steampunk, etc.) on individual books that can help you find other books with similar themes. ] (]) 02:11, 17 September 2009 (UTC)

== 3 worst dictators in Africa ==

Is ] a dictator and 3 worstin Africa. Somebody worte ] is example of worst dictator in Africa. how is Paul Biya a dictator? He is not bad at all? Who came up with the slogan 3 worst dictators in Africa?--] (]) 19:41, 16 September 2009 (UTC)
:From the linked article ]:
::''The historian ], in his book ''Tyrants, the World's 20 Worst Living Dictators'', ranked Biya with three others in sub-Saharan Africa: Robert Mugabe of Zimbabwe, Teodoro Obiang Nguema Mbasogo of Equatorial Guinea and King Mswati of Swaziland.''
:Check the last paragraph of the article for more information. ] (]) 19:55, 16 September 2009 (UTC)
::Where does "Idi 'V.D.' Amin" rank on that list? ] <sup>'']''</sup> ] 21:56, 16 September 2009 (UTC)
:::Since he doesn't qualify for the "living" part, I'll take a wild guess and say he didn't make the list. ] (]) 23:09, 16 September 2009 (UTC)
::::Too bad the section heading didn't specify that. Regardless, becoming dead was probably Amin's most statesmanlike act. ] <sup>'']''</sup> ] 23:49, 16 September 2009 (UTC)

::::If we're talking the worst dictators in Africa in history, I would have thought King ] would come pretty close to the top. ] (]) 23:44, 16 September 2009 (UTC)

:::::Unfortunately, there is steep competition to be on that list if you include the non-living. --] (]) 01:27, 17 September 2009 (UTC)

::::::As with dictators around the world, the more of them on the non-living list, the better. Unfortunately, history shows that when a dictator dies, there's at least one evil child born in this world to carry on, to carry on. In short, such a list changes constantly and it never gets any better. ] <sup>'']''</sup> ] 02:35, 17 September 2009 (UTC)

:I've mentioned this before, but David Wallechinsky is not an historian, he's just a guy who makes lists. ] (]) 02:32, 17 September 2009 (UTC)
::I have amended the article accordingly, Adam, as there was nothing in Wallechinsky's article to support the "historian" description. I wonder, as I re-read the final paragraph of ], if the great weight given to Wallechinsky's opinion is appropriate. I don't know enough about the local history and/or politics to take the matter further. ] (]) 02:51, 17 September 2009 (UTC)

::I hereby pretend to be grossly offended by the word "just", Adam. Not really; but maybe, given that WP is full of lists, we can accord list makers a degree of respect that "just a listmaker" seems to deny them. Historians would be lost without lists; and listmakers would be lost without the work that historians do, so each serves a good purpose. Live and let live, I say. :) -- ] (]) 13:43, 17 September 2009 (UTC)
:::Well, after reading ] and its sequels, which, admittedly, are not entirely David W.'s doing, I think we can safely say they are the kind of unreferenced cruft, full of urban legends and lazy research that would be easily deleted on Misplaced Pages. We are a superior class of listmakers than the Wallace/Wallechinsky family! ] (]) 00:58, 18 September 2009 (UTC)

== Shape of writing tablets ==

Hello,

Could you help me find out what the notches on the top corners of the tablet on ] are for ? What sort of tablet is the sculptor trying to depict ? Is it a wax tablet ? A stone tablet ? Do you know where I could find information on tablet shapes ? (see also ] with a somewhat similar shape) ] ] 20:13, 16 September 2009 (UTC)

:From ]: "The Keystone in her hand represents knowledge and shows the date of the United States Declaration of Independence, in roman numerals, July IV, MDCCLXXVI." ---'''''—&nbsp;]<span style="color:darkblue">&nbsp;'''''</span><sup>]</sup> 21:43, 16 September 2009 (UTC)

::In other words, the shape represents a ]. --Anonymous, 02:57 UTC, September 17, 2009.

:::The inscription JULY IV is kind of a mixed metaphor. To go fully Latin, presumably they should have said JULIUS instead of JULY. But then someone might think Lady Liberty's name was Julius. The analogy to EIS PHAOS is an interesting coincidence, as it's Greek for "toward light", and the poem connected with Lady Liberty says, "I lift my lamp beside the golden door." She welcomes new arrivals to New York City, and turns her back on the neighboring state. No respect for Joizy. :( ] <sup>'']''</sup> ] 04:01, 17 September 2009 (UTC)

::Did the Romans use V for the letter U? In that case it would be JVLIVS. ] (]) 13:57, 17 September 2009 (UTC)
:::They not only didn't have U, they didn't have J. The real classical spelling of Julius (both the person and the month he named after himself) is IVLIVS. Of course, in the classical era they didn't have the idea of numbering the days of the month forward from 1 anyway. July 4 would indeed have had a 4 in it, but only by chance -- it would have been called A.D. IIII NON. IVL., the 4th day before (and including) the Nones of July. The "A.D." there means "days before", not "year of the lord", and the form "IV" did not generally replace "IIII" until later times. See ] and ]. --Anonymous, 04:34 UTC, A.D. XIIII KAL. OCT., A.V.C. MMDCCLXII.
::::Of Course! How could I have forgotten my Indiana Jones? ] (]) 18:55, 18 September 2009 (UTC)

:Is the shape for ] a keystone too ? I would have thought this would be the standard shape for some kind of tablets (wax or stone)... ] ] 08:02, 17 September 2009 (UTC)


:At long last, I have found the answer : see the German language Misplaced Pages : ]. Thanks everybody for your help. ] ] 09:29, 17 September 2009 (UTC)

::I think the Statue of Liberty's tablet is a keystone, whereas the other image is a ]. ---'''''—&nbsp;]<span style="color:darkblue">&nbsp;'''''</span><sup>]</sup> 12:27, 18 September 2009 (UTC)

== ] ==

why are their servers always down? <span style="font-size: smaller;" class="autosigned">—Preceding ] comment added by ] (]) 20:32, 16 September 2009 (UTC)</span><!-- Template:UnsignedIP --> <!--Autosigned by SineBot-->

:Because they aren't working right. --]''''']''''' 21:07, 16 September 2009 (UTC)
:--] (]) 21:27, 16 September 2009 (UTC)

== The physics of money ==

By analogy with energy, is it truely possible to waste (ie destroy) money? Energy cannot be destroyed, but only converted into different forms (including matter). For example you could try wasting/destroying money by using it to gamble at a casino, but in actuality it would simply flow to the shareholders, employees, suppliers etc. and their employees, suppliers, families etc. Burning paper notes would eventually result in more money being printed than otherwise.

While it is easy to get money flowing out in a top-down direction - consider the casino example - is it very difficult to reverse the direction of flow and get money flowing in in a bottom-up manner. Is this because of similar reasons that it is difficult to reverse physical processors due to entropy? And are there things equivalent to Stirling engines in the money world? ] (]) 21:49, 16 September 2009 (UTC)

: Well, ] said that money is a mechanism for the flow of information about the efficient use of resources (or who deserves what); and if the money is, say, stolen, this information will be destroyed, and with it some wealth. (Money of course is not the same thing as wealth.) Yes, this does resemble entropy, which is also the destruction of information.
: Not sure where you're going with the Stirling engine thing. A Stirling engine works on an unusually small amount of heat compared to other engines, and therefore ... er? ] (]) 22:13, 16 September 2009 (UTC)
::What about something like a refridgerator mechanism - which concentrates heat/money? ] (]) 23:57, 16 September 2009 (UTC)

: ] showed, more than 200 year ago, that wealth could be created (by labour) and destroyed (by, um, destruction); wealth isn't conserved. Now you're talking about money (or are you talking about wealth and calling it money?). Money isn't wealth; it generally (but sometimes only vaguely) ''represents'' wealth, and it's even less prone to conservation than wealth. Money can be made and destroyed, even if the amount of wealth stays the same. It's really difficult to imagine a worthwhile physical analog (be it electricity, heat, fluids, or whatever) that models either of these concepts (never mind their interaction). Still, ] is a fun read. If that makes sense to you, reward yourself some red-coloured fluid. -- ] • ] 22:20, 16 September 2009 (UTC)

:I've seen the money-as-entropy analogy before, and while it does lead to some nice aphorisms (there are a million ways to spend your money, but little you can do to earn it), it isn't physically rigorous. As for ways to concentrate money, that's what tax breaks for the super wealthy are about—Maxwell's daemon, embodied. --] (]) 01:25, 17 September 2009 (UTC)

::Spending money does not destroy it, but money can be destroyed in other ways. For example, suppose that a bank holds $100 million in customer deposits. The bank takes, say, $92 million of that and loans it out. Now, where there had been $100 million, there now exists $192 million, because the depositors still own the money they put on deposit, but the borrowers also have funds they can use and spend. Then a recession occurs and borrowers owing $5 million go broke. The bank gets nervous and recalls another $7 million in loans. So the bank now has only $80 million in loans outstanding, and the money supply has been reduced by $12 million. This is a simplified example, but it shows one way that money can be destroyed. ] (]) 03:52, 17 September 2009 (UTC)

:::No, that's not the case. If you did an audit on each person involved in those transactions, you would still find they added up to the same amount. The borrowers "have" $92m, but they also owe $92m; their total assets haven't changed. The same with the banks and the depositors. If you like you can say that the depositors "own but don't have" the money, and the borrowers "have but don't own" it. ] (]) 13:46, 17 September 2009 (UTC)
:::This is the basic "shell game" that banks play, because it involves treating money like a number rather than a physical object. If everything were cash-based, this approach wouldn't work. Which is why everything ''isn't'' cash-based. The expansion and contraction of the money supply coincides with prosperity and recession. If everything were cash-based, basically there would be no expansion of the economy. Basic Econ 101. ] <sup>'']''</sup> ] 04:06, 17 September 2009 (UTC)

:::Spending energy does not destroy it either; it gets converted into different, less-usable forms. That's what the analogy was supposed to say—it isn't supposed to say that money is ''different'' than heat, but that it was ''similar''. You can convert wealth into lots of other things quite easily (like tasty food), things that cannot be converted ''back'' into usable wealth (the food gets eaten, or spoils). --] (]) 14:00, 17 September 2009 (UTC)

:There is an obvious way in which money is not constant. Every year central banks destroy a certain amount of money (i.e. actual coins and notes) and print or mint more. If the amount printed exceeds the amount destroyed then there is more money. It may not be worth as much in the long run, but there is certainly more of it. ] (]) 13:49, 17 September 2009 (UTC)

::But there's always far more "money" held in bank accounts etc than there are physical notes and coins to cover them. Far, far more. Every time I'm given some interest on my massive savings, they don't suddenly produce new coins to the value of $1.27 to cover it. -- ] (]) 19:04, 17 September 2009 (UTC)

DJClayworth - No, money really is created by a bank loan, even though there is an accompanying obligation to repay the loan. That is, when a loan is made, the borrower initially takes the borrowed money and puts it in its bank account, so the total money on deposit in my example goes from $100 million to $192 million (pre-recession) or $180 million (during the recession). (The bank can then take the redeposited money and lend it out too, but we'll ignore that for purposes of the example.) The funds deposited by the borrower are not any less real than the funds initially deposited. Actually, they're probably realer, in that the original deposits may have been time deposits, considered part of the broader M2 ], while the borrower's funds are probably in a demand deposit account and thus included in the narrower M1 measure. Also note that when borrowers went broke and were unable to repay $5 million, that money really was gone. (In actuality, the bank might have been able to make a partial recovery, but for purposes of the example I'm assuming that they were flat broke.) ] (]) 22:49, 17 September 2009 (UTC)

== Debate on healthcare reform ==

Hi Guys,

As someone who comes from the UK, the land of the death panel, i'm really interested in the debate on US healthcare reform - I was watching some protest on the news and basically, a lot of the protesters seemed to be working class. I guess i'm asking what these people think they're going to lose if the healthcare system was reformed - i mean, surely in terms of coverage, the system couldn't actually be much worse? Obviously i'm just a pinko European liberal, so i'd be interested in hearing what actually the opposing arguments are, from their point of view. Surely they're less concerned about tax rates than say, the people on fox news... Cheers,
] (]) 22:21, 16 September 2009 (UTC)

: The ] article, and its section ], might begin to answer your question. -- ] • ] 22:26, 16 September 2009 (UTC)
::What's a death panel? ] (]) 22:34, 16 September 2009 (UTC)

::: See ] -- ] • ] 22:40, 16 September 2009 (UTC)

::::I just like to point out to our American chums that the OP is being ironic concerning "death panels" - they do not exist in the UK, although the NHS is reluctant to pay for very expensive drugs which are believed to be ineffective. I've also never heard of anyone, as asserted below, having problems getting a doctor, or waiting in pain - this would be a national scandal if it ever happened. Re Sarah Palin's writings - care for people with disabilities such as Downs Syndrome is very good - we do take a pride in caring for the less fortunate. You get cradle to grave care in the UK - even if you became completely impoversihed, you'd still get free healthcare, which I think takes a lot of worry out of people's lives. May I point out that the life expectancy in the UK is greater than that in the US. People can have American-style private health insurance if they wish, but not many choose to have it. ] (]) 11:02, 17 September 2009 (UTC)

:: An episode of ''The West Wing'' (I forget which one; I think it's the one about the ]) gave a plausible answer for what seems to be your underlying question : why do poor Americans vote for parties that seek to continue the economic system that's likely to keep those same poor Americans poor (isn't this turkeys voting for Christmas), rather than a genuinely socialist, redistributivist party? Their answer was that even the poorest, most disadvantaged Americans genuinely believed in the American Dream, that they personally (through dint of hard work and divine grace) could themselves make it big. And they wouldn't want that bugbear "big government" taking away all that newfound wealth.-- ] • ] 22:39, 16 September 2009 (UTC)
::: And of course they might believe in the benefit of a thriving economy as a whole to even the poorest (more cheap products available); and they might even be selflessly principled, believing that lower tax and/or less governmental coercion is good for humanity; but I guess that's unlikely. ] (]) 22:49, 16 September 2009 (UTC)

Remember -- 85% of Americans have health insurance. And those Americans who have good insurance get arguably better healthcare than people in the UK or Canada. They don't have to struggle to find a family doctor or wait years for surgery. Many Americans have heard horror stories of people in other countries suffering in pain while they wait for their turn to get taken care of. The trick for supporters of healthcare reform is how do you convince the vast majority of people who already have health insurance that they stand to benefit from changes to the status quo. -- ] (]) 00:42, 17 September 2009 (UTC)

:Actually, MOST of those 85% have the potential for serious problems. Most Americans are on some form of ] or ] which greatly restricts their access to health care, often with layers of bureaucracy that makes it almost impossible to get speedy care. These organizations are widely reported to cut off coverage arbitrarily, either by refusing to pay for necessary but expensive treatments, or by dropping coverage altogether once the patient receives some sort of arbitrary coverage limit. Most Americans are also saddled with high co-pays and high deductibles that still leaves the very sick with high out-of-pocket expenses. Healthy Americans, who never access their health plans, tend to be happy with them. The sick are somewhat more disappointed... --]''''']''''' 02:13, 17 September 2009 (UTC)

::The section title says it all: ''Debate on healthcare reform''. Unless the OP has another specific question, I believe we are treading far from information and well into debate. ] (]) 02:25, 17 September 2009 (UTC)

:::Correct. Please do not debate the topic here. The only thing I can imagine that provides more of an answer to the OP is that just about any large group of Americans that you will see on television will be working class because most Americans are working class. Seeing a thousand working class Americans on TV in support or opposition of something does not in any way represent the working class as a whole. In my opinion, most Americans are too busy working to go out and march around in support or opposition of anything. I personally work two full time jobs while completing my PhD and raising two babies. No matter how much I support or oppose anything, I'm not wasting my time trying to get on TV with some dumb slogan on a cardboard sign. -- ]] 03:35, 17 September 2009 (UTC)

::::<small>You forgot your third job, that of Reference Desk question answerer. ] (]) 04:50, 17 September 2009 (UTC)</small>
::::It may look like debating, but it is at least informing the OP what some opponents of the reform think they're going to lose - access to healthcare without long waits, and access to treatments which would be judged cost-ineffective by an American ]. The latter is closely related to the "death panel" fear. ] (]) 07:52, 17 September 2009 (UTC)
::::The phrase "]" doesn't mean "all people who work" (which would include ], say), but "poor people who work" or something like "]". It's poorly named, offensive to non-poor workers, and an obvious grab at defining language, but there you have it. --] 17:33, 17 September 2009 (UTC)
:::::The phrase is just out of date. Before the rise of the middle class, there were people who worked for their money and people who inherited their money (or inherited assets which earn money). Then "working class" made perfect sense. --] (]) 21:25, 17 September 2009 (UTC)

:A major reason is that in the last couple of decades, most of the working class and most of the rural population has been drawn to the social values (not economic values) claimed by the Republican Party: ] is bad and should be discouraged where possible; ] should be illegal; there should be more ] in public places and public life; and the US enjoys ] and does no wrong internationally; criticizing the country's actions is unpatriotic. This identification with these social values trumps the fact that the Republican Party stabs the working class in the back whenever possible, so since the Republican party condemns nationalized health care, and even the timid step of a "]", which means "the government will start an insurance company", these social conservatives rally to the Republican point of view, despite the benefit they would end up with. ] (]) 04:50, 17 September 2009 (UTC)
::Ironic, ain't it? That last point, I mean. To me, "conservative" means cautious and thrifty. The neo-cons are neither. They love government spending as much as liberals do. The only point of disagreement is what to spend it on: guns or butter, as the saying goes. ] <sup>'']''</sup> ] 04:57, 17 September 2009 (UTC)


Thanks guys -so just to clear a few things up if you don't mind. Firstly, i'm not sure the phrase 'working class' is particularly out-of-date or offensive, but yes, in British English, its generally means those (who were raised) on a low income. i'll now go and read the[REDACTED] article like a good boy (but not before i answer almostreadytofly's point: if british people are unhappy with the NHS (and the policies of NICE) they can just choose private health insurance, and get american-style cover. it seems to me that americans just don't have that choice)) ] (]) 21:49, 17 September 2009 (UTC)
:What point? I'm offended you say I'm making a point! ''':P''' (I actually have ] coverage through work) ] (]) 23:46, 17 September 2009 (UTC)

:Does the news over there explain that many Americans have extremely low cost (even no cost) insurance through many programs such as Medicare, Medicaid, the VA, and Federally-funded free clinics? I'm purposely leaving out the free health care for the military and prisoners. -- ]] 01:14, 18 September 2009 (UTC)
::If you look for details, yes. At first glance, I'm not sure; I mostly get my American politics news from American sources on the web. I'm well aware of the campaign to "keep government out of Medicare" though. ] (]) 07:18, 18 September 2009 (UTC)

= September 17 =

== Converts to Judaism in Nazi era ==

Were people who converted to the Jewish faith during the Nazi era in Europe treated the same as racial Jews. I.e. would a non racial Jewish convert be sent to an extermination facility, or just a concentration camp as a jewish sympathiser. Thanks very much

:The article on ] implies that Germans who converted were counted amongst the Jewish (which makes sense, given how much the Nazis would have considered that sort of thing to be "race treachery"), though I haven't seen anything about this particular question myself. --] (]) 01:39, 17 September 2009 (UTC)

== Isabelle Urquhart bio? ==

At this time I am to new to site and code writing so I am find it very hard create a new page
however is enough info on public domain site for her bio page to be completed
for example.
http://digitalgallery.nypl.org/nypldigital/dgkeysearchresult.cfm?parent_id=560813&word=
http://query.nytimes.com/gst/abstract.html?res=9A01E4D6153EE033A2575BC0A9649C946697D6CF
http://www.ibdb.com/person.php?id=62940
So,who are the experts at[REDACTED] who can help me? ''-- 01:22, 17 September 2009 ]''

:There is a place you can ask other editors to start an article for you; begin at ]. Not knowing anything about the time, though, you will have to state why she meets Misplaced Pages's ]. ] (]) 04:41, 17 September 2009 (UTC)
:Seems notable enough. Have a look at ] and tell me what you think. ] (]) 07:28, 17 September 2009 (UTC)

== Incorruptible FBI ==

I have reard that the ] had a reputation for being incorruptible for, I believe, decades. If I recall correctly, this was taken for granted in '']'' (the novel), for example. Am I correct about this reputation? (Obviously corner cases must have existed, but I'm asking about the general reputation of the organization.) If so, why the incorruptibility? It wasn't religious fanaticism or incredibly high pay. ] (]) 06:24, 17 September 2009 (UTC)

] ]. ] (]) 09:54, 17 September 2009 (UTC)
:And I'm sure ] just found it difficult to find evidence on the mafia as opposed to civil righters. ] (]) 11:01, 17 September 2009 (UTC)
::A basic truth about federal law is that it at least ''tries'' to appear to be moral and fair, which makes people who uphold and enforce it appear to be moral and fair and its violators immoral and unfair. <small>--<font face="rage italic" size="4.5" color="LightSteelBlue"> ]</font> (])</small> 11:57, 17 September 2009 (UTC)
:::"''Power tends to corrupt, and absolute power corrupts absolutely.''" - ] Everyone is corruptible. ~ <font color="#FF0099">Amory</font><font color="#555555"><small> ''(] • ] • ])''</small></font> 12:20, 17 September 2009 (UTC)

:::]'s carefully groomed self-presentation was taken at face value until after the threat that he represented was removed by his death. Compare the public reputation of that other head of a ], ].--] (]) 13:45, 17 September 2009 (UTC)

:It's usually a contrast between local and federal enforcement. Local enforcement can be bribed—there are a limited number of people and they have strong local political interests (the sheriff needs to be reelected, as does the judge, etc.). Federal enforcement is more tricky—there are more people, and their political interests are in "big" politics, not "small" politics. So J. Edgar Hoover doesn't need somebody in Chicago to keep his job—he needs to please Congress, and the President, to do so. There's not necessarily a whole lot that someone in Chicago can do to make Hoover happy. You can bribe one Congressman—can you bribe 50 of them? Additionally, by being "outsiders", the FBI generally don't have stakes in local disputes. Local cops are going to be there every day for years—they can build up debts, illicit arrangements, etc. G-men come in only when there is a problem—they don't know you, they don't want to know you, they don't owe you anything.
:This is, of course, quite different than saying someone is honest and truly incorruptible. It just means that local hoods can't bribe federal enforcement, usually, because there is a little more oversight and they don't have local investments. Hoover and the FBI were certainly anything but pure in intent and spirit. --] (]) 13:55, 17 September 2009 (UTC)

==HEALTH CARE REFORM==
In 2008 Frontline surveyed health care plans around the world and found the following reforms:
<p>INSURANCE:
#funding
##all must buy
##poor subsidized
#profit
##break even, not for profit
MEDICAL SERVICES
#delivery
##everyone is covered
##basics services guaranteed
#cost
##electives minimized
##administration computerized</p><p>
It seems the real problem with passing health care reform is the number of people whose job will be lost. Reform requires insurance and health provider administration cost reduction from the current 23% or more to 2% or less. The cost of health services needs to be reduced as well similar to MRI scan cost reduction in Japan's reformed system. Can this be done by replacing insurance and health care personnel (including diagnosticians) with computers and by installing other operational and delivery efficiencies? <small>--<font face="rage italic" size="4.5" color="LightSteelBlue"> ]</font> (])</small> 11:47, 17 September 2009 (UTC)</p>

:Plenty of people are trying to reduce healthcare costs in both public and private sectors in many parts of the world. Computers often form an important part of this. However it's not always easy, and you have to be cautions since the side-effects of getting it wrong (such as losing medical records at a critical time) are very serious. However even with both trying to cut costs like this, US healthcare remains much more expensive than healthcare in other countries. ] (]) 13:38, 17 September 2009 (UTC)
::Of course it's expensive. It's privatized, for-profit. ] <sup>'']''</sup> ] 13:59, 17 September 2009 (UTC)

:"The real problem with passing health care reform" in the US isn't the (unknown) number of middle-class bureaucrat jobs that will be lost, but the number of rich incomes that will be lost because for-profit insurance companies will end up left out in the cold. The people with those incomes are funding all of the opposition (by contributing to politicians, mostly). ] (]) 14:22, 17 September 2009 (UTC)
::And convincing a lot of suckers to do their marching for them. ] <sup>'']''</sup> ] 14:27, 17 September 2009 (UTC)
::::While jobs are a defendable issue I don't think corporate or individual profit has anywhere near the same defendable status as jobs. Risk in business is a given. <small>--<font face="rage italic" size="4.5" color="LightSteelBlue"> ]</font> (])</small> 20:12, 17 September 2009 (UTC)

:::This is the second time that a healthcare-reform question has turned into a debate. Could we please restrict our answers to the facts of the question, and not to opinions? ] (]) 14:35, 17 September 2009 (UTC)
::::If the answers were clear, there would be no debate, now would there? ] <sup>'']''</sup> ] 14:37, 17 September 2009 (UTC)
:Research has been conducted into "Computer-assisted medical diagnosis", but this is to aid doctors; I'm not aware that it can be used to ''replace'' doctors. The NHS runs "Drop-in centres" where initial consultation is with a nurse, who may refer the case to a doctor if necessary. Thus nurses are used to reduce the number of doctors needed. In addition, there was some talk of outsourcing the examination of some x-ray scans to Spain . ] (]) 15:13, 17 September 2009 (UTC)

== US Congress eligibility ==

Hello,

I have a question about Mark Kirk's future status in the House of Representatives now that he has declared a run for the Senate.
The Senate primary is set for February 2nd. Let's say he runs and loses. Could he then go up for re-election to the House in 2010? Is that legal? And is it possible, given the various deadlines?

I hit up some layman congressional law books at my library and also tried flipping through here:
http://www.senate.gov/reference/resources/pdf/senateelectionlawguidebook.pdf
But no dice. Maybe it's something so obvious that it's not mentioned anywhere.

And thus I come to Misplaced Pages. Any help is appreciated.


Thanks!

:You can run for one office while you're sitting in another, it happens all the time. For example, the 4 Pres/VP candidates, 3 of whom were sitting Senators and 1 was a sitting Governor. You just can't ''hold'' more than one office. So if he loses the Senate primary, he can stay in the House, and can win the House election again, assuming he chooses to run. If he ''wins'' the Senate primary, then he finds himself in a P.R. bind if he were to simultaneously run for the House and Senate. I think his party would step in and make him choose, if he didn't choose voluntarily. ] <sup>'']''</sup> ] 17:01, 17 September 2009 (UTC)

:You can sometimes run for two offices at once. ] famously kept himself as the Democratic Party candidate for the Senate seat from Texas, while being ]' running-mate in the ]. Had he won both jobs, he would simply have resigned his senate seat in favor of the higher office. In the case of Kirk, the only issue is whether he still has time to enter the race for a seat as a representative if he fails in the Senate primary; often, the primaries for both houses of Congress are run simultaneously, so you have to pick one race only. --] (]) 18:05, 17 September 2009 (UTC)

::Thanks to the both of you for responding. I ended up just calling Kirk's office and they very quickly and definitively stated that his running for Senate precluded the possibility of holding the House seat next term.
::I looked it up and the filing deadline for IL-10 is Nov. 1, three months before the Senate primary, so that must be part of it.
::That's enough info for my purposes, and I consider the question resolved, but as a matter of curiosity I wonder whether there's a legal restriction on running for two positions, or if it's a matter of PR and party politics.

::Thanks again.

:::I think it's probably PR and party politics in most cases. For example ] resigned from the Senate (of which he was the majority leader at the time) when he ran against Clinton in 1996 in order to show that he was committed to his pursuit of the presidency, even though it wasn't required of him. Xuxl mentioned that Floyd Bentsen ran for senate and VP at once, as did ] (who did win both and then resigned from the senate). Biden had the assurance that a Democratic governor would appoint his replacement in the senate, although Bentsen didn't. I can imagine it might be possible for there to be state or local laws that would forbid running for two offices at once but I don't know any. ] (]) 03:16, 19 September 2009 (UTC)

== Are NJ municipalities statutorily required to provide fire protection ==

Hello. Are NJ municipalities statutorily required to provide fire protection for their jurisdiction? I have searched the NJ code and NJ cases, but have been unable to find any such discussion. Thanks in advance. ] (]) 18:15, 17 September 2009 (UTC)

:I guess NJ is ]? Unfortunately I live in ]. I have no idea. So I'm mainly posting to get some discussion going that has been lacking thus far. It would strike me as odd that a local government would not be required to have some kind of fire protection. But I'm not American. --] (]) 23:48, 17 September 2009 (UTC)

::Yes, NJ is New Jersey. Sorry for not being clearer. ] (]) 01:45, 18 September 2009 (UTC)

::You'd be surprised. In the U.S., many ]s (no article?!) are separate from the municipalities they serve. Once, I saw on the news that in the next town over (in New York State), the fire department refused to put out a fire on a commercial property on which the owners had failed to pay their fire tax. The fire fighters did hose down the neighboring properties to prevent spread. Seems ridiculous, even negligent and immoral, to me. --] (]) 00:33, 18 September 2009 (UTC)

''Please note the reference desk is not for opinions'' , as this example shows it can lead to arguments ''Please attempt to confine your answer to the facts, thank you.''

:::I spent quite a bit of time searching the New Jersey statutes for such a requirement and failed to find an explicit requirement, though I am not expert at legal searches. I would infer, though, that this has been left to individual counties or municipalities under them to arrange as they see fit. I think that over the years, a public expectation developed that counties or municipalities would provide such services, so I would expect that arrangements (including municipal fire departments, separate fire districts, and volunteer fire departments) have been made by counties and municipalities (perhaps less than adequately) to cover all parts of the state. ] (]) 16:15, 18 September 2009 (UTC)

== Eliminations of two term limits ==

Since country like ] and ] eliminate two term limits so ] and ] can run again. Can all country do that. If I was in Ghana could I just sign a petition to eliminate the two term limit to allow ] to run again. Is that legal? If two term limit is gone, does this mean Paul Biya can stay in until he dies or he can only run one mor term? Is this possilbe to some country protest to kick out the two term limits is illegal. i wish I've sign a petition to Ghana to kick off the two term limit to let ] stay!--] (]) 21:05, 17 September 2009 (UTC)

:I don't know any country where a petition can directly cause a change in law. A petition might be able to force a referendum, though. Laws can always be changed. The law could be changed to extend the term limit or to eliminate it entirely. Term limits are often parts of constitutions, which are usually more difficult to change that regular laws, but they can be changed. --] (]) 21:23, 17 September 2009 (UTC)

:Our article ] &mdash; which appears to be a simple copy of the entire constitution with indexing, and hence needs a lot of work &mdash; appears to say in part 66 that the President of Ghana can be elected to up to 2 four-year terms; and later in the article, the space for "Amendment of the Constitution" is blank, so I checked , which seems to say that part 66 is not an "entrenched provision" and can therefore be amended with a 2/3 majority of Parliament. So, as far as signing petitions goes, this would presumably only be a petition to try to convince your local member of Parliament to introduce or support such an amendment. ] (]) 22:58, 17 September 2009 (UTC)

:I know about Ghana is 2 term limit stands out, but i'm wondering if Cameroon and Uganda will completely eliminate two term limit or just give one extra term. I don't know if Kenya and Namibia can eliminate the two term limit, so it will stay stand. Is this possble Uganda will bring two term limit back?--] (]) 17:11, 18 September 2009 (UTC)

::Would this be up to voters to think if ] should stay for 2014 election. said two term max only. If voters in nambia wants Pohamba to stay could they ask the constitution to stop the two term? Citizens in Namibia can sign a petition.--] (]) 17:18, 18 September 2009 (UTC)

:::As Comet said above, a petition is not likely to change a law; only a legisltative body (or its leadership) can do that. So, if the "will of the people" is for "x" to happen, then the people must convince legislators to make the change. As for your questions about what the various peoples and governments may do, that is speculation and our crystal ball has been broken for years. ] (]) 17:54, 18 September 2009 (UTC)

== is it possible for Israel to commit terrorism? ==

Some noted scholars accuse Israel of terrorism but this doesn't make sense for me, as Israel is a country, with a formal military. I don't understand how, even in theory, a country such as Israel could commit terrorism, any more thanthe US, France, England, or any other country could. My question is whether this impression of mine is correct, or, on the contrary, that it would be theoretically possible for Israel (despite it being a country and despite it having a military) to commit terrorism? If it would be THEORETICALLY possible (which I am having trouble believing) then what would be a (theortical) example? --] (]) 23:04, 17 September 2009 (UTC)

:The term isn't well defined. It is often used to mean acts intended to cause terror committed by non-state groups, but then you hear about "state sponsored terrorism". What is the difference between an act of state sponsored terrorism and an act of war? There isn't any clear distinction that I know of. And then you get "shock and awe" tactics directly committed by states - what is the difference between that and terrorism? I don't know of any real distinction there, either. It is all political really - the words used say more about the opinions of the person using them than they do about the acts being committed. --] (]) 23:10, 17 September 2009 (UTC)
:See ]. Some have argued like you that the term doesn't apply to states, they should be judged for war crimes instead. Personally I think the attempt to say that just because it is a state it isn't terrorism is deeply flawed. ] (]) 23:13, 17 September 2009 (UTC)
::Many define terrorism as the use of violence against civilians. If you take that as your definition a country could be seen as guilty of terrorism ] (]) 23:35, 17 September 2009 (UTC)
:::It's usually not called terrorism if the state leadership perpetrates the violence. However there is the concept of ] where the leadership of one nation provides arms and funding to a (probably small) group to kill members of the population in another nation. So were Israel to commit acts of violence on its own population it might be called "policing". But were Israel to fund some Jewish extremists that went out to set a bomb off in the Gaza strip (and then, in likelihood, denied doing it) that would be terrorism. As far as I know, Israel has not terrorised according to current definitions. --] (]) 23:55, 17 September 2009 (UTC)

Even Kofi Annan (not a conspicuous sympathizer with Israel) got fed up with some of the perpetual word games and stalemated diplomatic logjams at the United Nations which prevented the General Assembly from taking almost any truly meaningful and substantive stand whatsoever against terrorism, and included the following language in one of his official documents: ] (]) 02:19, 18 September 2009 (UTC)
{{cquote|
:United Nations General Assembly A/59/2005
:21 March 2005
:Report of the Secretary-General, Kofi Annan
:''In Larger Freedom: Towards Development, Security and Human Rights for All''
: 91. It is time to set aside debates on so-called "State terrorism". The use of force by States is already thoroughly regulated under international law. And the right to resist occupation must be understood in its true meaning. It cannot include the right to deliberately kill or maim civilians. I endorse fully the High-level Panel's call for a definition of terrorism, which would make it clear that, in addition to actions already proscribed by existing conventions, any action constitutes terrorism if it is intended to cause death or serious bodily harm to civilians or non-combatants with the purpose of intimidating a population or compelling a Government or an international organization to do or abstain from doing any act. I believe this proposal has clear moral force, and I strongly urge world leaders to unite behind it and to conclude a comprehensive convention on terrorism before the end of the sixtieth session of the General Assembly.
: 182. The Commission on Human Rights' capacity to perform its tasks has been increasingly undermined by its declining credibility and professionalism. In particular, States have sought membership of the Commission not to strengthen human rights but to protect themselves against criticism or to criticize others. As a result, a credibility deficit has developed, which casts a shadow on the reputation of the United Nations system as a whole.}}

:What ''should'' we call it when Israel, the US, France, etc., undertake campaigns of terror? Historically, France and the United States have both done things that, if done by a stateless entity, would certainly be called "terrorism" (car bombs in civilian areas, for example). What do we call those, if not terrorism? --] (]) 13:34, 18 September 2009 (UTC)
::"Illegal covert actions" is popular for that kind of thing. It may be fun to tweak the US's nose by pointing out that carpet bombing civilians inspires quite a lively terror, but it doesn't necessarily advance the debate. The word is a club to beat those you don't like; serious people should use more precise and less inflammatory language. --] 15:01, 18 September 2009 (UTC)
:::That, however, is an argument for ''never'' using the term "terrorism", not for refraining only when states are the perpetrators. ] 20:52, 18 September 2009 (UTC)
:See the writings of ] for a lot of discussion about state terrorism, mostly about state terrorism by US-backed regimes elsewhere in the world. ] (]) 17:15, 18 September 2009 (UTC)

:: And Noam Chomsky might well have a case, if it is the case that it is logically/linguistically/philosophically/etc possible for states like America to commit terrorism. Which gets us back to the initial question: is it?

= September 18 =

== ironic beauty ==

Isn't it ironic that municipalities forbid uncut grass for the sake of protecting beauty but fail to protect people from beautiful plants that are hazardous or poisonous by requiring they be identified by placard or tag onsite? <small>--<font face="rage italic" size="4.5" color="LightSteelBlue"> ]</font> (])</small> 00:19, 18 September 2009 (UTC)
::No. See ].--] (]) 00:54, 18 September 2009 (UTC)
:::If not ironic then perhaps contradictory or inconsistent? <small>--<font face="rage italic" size="4.5" color="LightSteelBlue"> ]</font> (])</small> 02:09, 18 September 2009 (UTC)
::::Can you cite an example or two? ] <sup>'']''</sup> ] 02:15, 18 September 2009 (UTC)
:::::I'll try... in principle municipalities and government are against death, accidental or intentional yet will build a bicycle lane next to parked cars such that a bicyclist can slam into a open car door or be hit by a car upon swerving to avoid hitting an open car door. Converting one lane of on-street parking to a bicycle lane might help fullfill the principle to which government subscribes. Otherwise it may appear the government is contradictory or inconsistent between its own actions and the principles to which it subscribes. <small>--<font face="rage italic" size="4.5" color="LightSteelBlue"> ]</font> (])</small> 03:04, 18 September 2009 (UTC)
::::::Actually, I was hoping for an example involving "beautiful plants that are hazardous or poisonous". Regarding the bike lane, remember that governments operate from compromise, and maybe taking away valuable parking spaces is not considered to be a reasonable option. Admittedly, the scenario you describe (which I suspect you've experienced) has a Laurel-and-Hardy aspect to it which was presumably not intended. Have you tried lobbying for that change you advocate? ] <sup>'']''</sup> ] 04:59, 18 September 2009 (UTC)
:::::::Azella and Oleander are two. While Castor and Rosary Pea are not ornamental they have no antidotes. <small>--<font face="rage italic" size="4.5" color="LightSteelBlue"> ]</font> (])</small> 21:01, 18 September 2009 (UTC)
::::::If you're trying to complain that government bodies can be "contradictory or inconsistent" well then, yeah. Can't please everybody all the time, but they've got to try. ] ~ <font color="#FF0099">Amory</font><font color="#555555"><small> ''(] • ] • ])''</small></font> 05:23, 18 September 2009 (UTC)
'''The Reference Desk is not a discussion forum.''' It is for answering '''factual questions''' with '''references'''. Please do not use it as your soapbox. There are plenty of internet forums that would be better suited to your post. ] (]) 10:21, 18 September 2009 (UTC)
:To qualify as a soapbox diatribe one must be advocating something, which I am not. <small>--<font face="rage italic" size="4.5" color="LightSteelBlue"> ]</font> (])</small> 21:04, 18 September 2009 (UTC)
::Although more noble than diatribes, ] as above, are still soapboxing. (Unless it wasn't rhetorical in which case you might have been seeking opinions, another no.no)] (]) 22:09, 18 September 2009 (UTC)
:::If anything I'm seeking reasons why persons would want to attack a municipality or why people would turn a blind eye to the extent of allowing 9/11. Palestine has been given as the most viable reason along with the creation and marketing of genetically enginered food crops to produce spermacide, herbicide, persticide and plastics all over the world and not just in Afganistan. To determine whether the acts of municiple government might also serve as a cause in selecting a target the next time in absence of reference to such information being contained within an article requires the asking of such questions here. <small>--<font face="rage italic" size="4.5" color="LightSteelBlue"> ]</font> (])</small> 23:23, 18 September 2009 (UTC)
::::You lost me at the bakery. What has this got to do with homeowners being required to mow their lawns? ] <sup>'']''</sup> ] 00:01, 19 September 2009 (UTC)
:::::It may depend upon the reason. Requiring someone to mow a lawn to prevent it from being a fire hazard is quite different from requiring someone to mow their lawn for the purpose of beautification. While the first reason might gain compliance without resistance the other may not. A property owner who thinks municiple government is being oppressive might then fail to report that he overheard the renters down the block talking to each other in Arabic and saying how oppressive the municipality was. On the other hand the next attack may take place where no one's complaints about oppression or inconsistency are overheard but it's still good to know where and why they are. <small>--<font face="rage italic" size="4.5" color="LightSteelBlue"> ]</font> (])</small> 00:16, 19 September 2009 (UTC)
::::::The reason people are compelled to keep their yards in decent condition, including reasonable lawn-mowing, is to keep the neighborhood from looking run-down. That has to do with property values and such stuff as that. Anyone who buys a house knows that. Anyone who thinks being compelled to mow the lawn is "oppressive" is unlikely to have a job, so their buying a house is also unlikely. ] <sup>'']''</sup> ] 00:27, 19 September 2009 (UTC)
:::::::You forget about the effect of watering restrictions on the beauty of a lawn and the restiction on replacing it with a Zen or biotanical garden. If a municipality handles such restrictions in an unfair or arbitrary way that favors one property owner over another rather than treating everyone on an equal basis then you have a point of rub perhaps sufficient in the minds of some to bring that municipality down. Its one of hundreds of possibe motives why someone or a group of individuals might do something like 9/11. If you are like me you want to know what each one of them might be. <small>--<font face="rage italic" size="4.5" color="LightSteelBlue"> ]</font> (])</small> 00:49, 19 September 2009 (UTC)
::::::::I doubt very much that the 9/11 perps were concerned about lawns. ] <sup>'']''</sup> ] 03:23, 19 September 2009 (UTC)
:::::::::Can you guarantee that it will not be included in the reason behind the next 9/11? <small>--<font face="rage italic" size="4.5" color="LightSteelBlue"> ]</font> (])</small> 06:01, 19 September 2009 (UTC)
::::::::::How would I or any of us here know that? You think we're sitting in on al-Qaeda's monthly meetings? The reason for 9/11 was the same reason as Pearl Harbor - a foreign nation (of sorts) trying to convince us to back off from some part of the world. And as with Pearl Harbor, it didn't work. ] <sup>'']''</sup> ] 09:54, 19 September 2009 (UTC)
<big>'''The Reference Desk is not a discussion forum.''' Do not feed the trolls.</big> ] (]) 10:37, 19 September 2009 (UTC)

==unitelligent design==
While life is claimed to have no intelligent cause do the proponents of this claim, also claim there is no intelligent effect? <small>--<font face="rage italic" size="4.5" color="LightSteelBlue"> ]</font> (])</small> 01:38, 18 September 2009 (UTC)
:It depends.] (]) 01:50, 18 September 2009 (UTC)
:What ] is probably trying to say is, what do you mean by "intelligent"? Indeed, how does one define "]"? All of our knowledge of the world comes but of our ]. <font style="font-family:Monotype Corsiva; font-size:15px;"><i>]<b>]</b></i></font> 01:56, 18 September 2009 (UTC)
::How about the ability to deduce? <small>--<font face="rage italic" size="4.5" color="LightSteelBlue"> ]</font> (])</small> 02:12, 18 September 2009 (UTC)
:::Lots of animals can solve problems, a trait achieved through the trial-and-error of natural selection. For example, the ] is an exceptionally intelligent creature, especially for something so short-lived. ] <sup>'']''</sup> ] 05:02, 18 September 2009 (UTC)

:Firstly, I don't think ''unintelligent design'' is a particularly useful term - opponents of ID generally believe that there was no rational thinking designer (intelligent or otherwise). To answer your question, you'll need to tell us what you mean by "intelligent effect" but have a look at ]. ] (]) 08:07, 18 September 2009 (UTC)
::Intelligent effect is something like a tree falling across a stream to produce a bridge from one side to the other. <small>--<font face="rage italic" size="4.5" color="LightSteelBlue"> ]</font> (])</small> 20:41, 18 September 2009 (UTC)
If you mean the ability of the intellect, or the mind, to affect physical processes, the jury is very much out on that one. Actually, I think the jury may have sneaked out of its sequestration a long time ago without anyone noticing. The problem of mental causation is a vexing one and continues to occupy philosophers and cognitive scientists. All 3+ positions have their adherents: There is no mental causation of physical events; there is mental causation of physical events; we're asking the wrong question, things are neither "mental" nor "physical", we need to redefine the terms, etc. etc. As to your original question, if I understood it correctly, there are certainly many people who both deny intelligent design and the possibility of mental causation, and I suppose in many cases these things are connected in their minds. --] (]) 08:33, 18 September 2009 (UTC)

:@OP: To avoid any misunderstanding of your question: Can cou give an example of the "intelligent effect" life has had on the universe ? --] (]) 09:59, 18 September 2009 (UTC)
:::Starting with an atom of hydrogen and oxygen one might say that intelligent effect is the fact that they can come together to form water. <small>--<font face="rage italic" size="4.5" color="LightSteelBlue"> ]</font> (])</small> 20:44, 18 September 2009 (UTC)

::Is a ] a proof of it? ] (]) 11:19, 18 September 2009 (UTC)
:::Intelligent effect is more the result of unintelligent causes. However, just becasue man is an intelligent cause of a space probe does not mean that a space probe is not an intelligent effect. <small>--<font face="rage italic" size="4.5" color="LightSteelBlue"> ]</font> (])</small> 20:50, 18 September 2009 (UTC)

::I think the OP is groping with the idea that the universe is becoming intelligent, as ] postulated with his idea of the noosphere. This is also a staple of science fiction: see "Star Maker" by ] or "Hyperion" by ]for examples. ] (]) 13:24, 18 September 2009 (UTC)
:::Not really, although as time passes the complexity of it all increases to the point where the idea of intelligent effect becomes more recognizable. <small>--<font face="rage italic" size="4.5" color="LightSteelBlue"> ]</font> (])</small> 01:17, 19 September 2009 (UTC)

:I think the question is a little too vague to answer concretely, but if you mean "do people who subscribe to the theory of naturalistic evolution believe that intelligent agency can arise from unintelligent causes," the answer is "yes", that's basically what evolution means to describe (how "dumb" laws of nature can produce apparently well-designed and quite clever creatures). A lot of this is how we define "intelligence", obviously—from a physical standpoint, humans are not much different than rocks. From a philosophical standpoint, they definitely have agency where rocks do not. --] (]) 15:14, 18 September 2009 (UTC)
::Yes, your response is more inline with my question. I'm wondering if there is an inconsistency in the minds of the proponents of natural evolution that where there is intelligent effect there can still be unintelligent casue. <small>--<font face="rage italic" size="4.5" color="LightSteelBlue"> ]</font> (])</small> 01:17, 19 September 2009 (UTC)
:::I don't think proponents of natural evolution feel there's any inconsistency there. Explaining how less complicated systems can naturally lead to more complicated systems is central to the theory. ] (]) 04:41, 19 September 2009 (UTC)
::::In that case it is reasonable to assume that computers will gain in intelligence and capability to the point of outshining us. <small>--<font face="rage italic" size="4.5" color="Whistleable"> ]</font> (])</small> 06:03, 19 September 2009 (UTC)

== musical doctrine of affections ==

I am interested in the specifics of the doctrine of affections. An excellent Teaching Company class by Robert Greenberg listed many of the keys and a few words describing the affection being portrayed by the piece for each key in the Baroque period. Since I play a lot of Baroque music, I want to know more specifics so I can interpret the composer's intent more knowledgeably. I haven't been able to find anything more specific than those few words from the CD class. I want a bigger picture with more detail. 00:35, 18 September 2009 ] (talk | contribs) (Attribution added by ] (]) 06:26, 18 September 2009 (UTC))

:] is not of much help, as you probably know :( --] ] 10:58, 18 September 2009 (UTC)

:I've never heard that term. Some years ago I went to a lecture-recital of some Haydn sonatas, presented by ]. He went into considerable detail about how particular keys and certain phrasings and effects were used by Haydn to denote certain moods or states. Not only that, but the audiences of his day would know exactly what he was referring to by his use of those devices; whereas modern audiences no longer have this knowledge but just sit there and think "that's nice". It was an absolute eye-opener, or ear-opener, more appropriately. Unfortunately, I've forgotten virtually everything I heard that night, and I really wish I had a recording or transcript of the lecture, because it was one of the most fascinating evenings I've spent in a long time. It's possible that an approach to Lancaster, an acknowledged expert on Haydn, might produce some results of interest to you. He's contactable through the ] (when he's not performing or recording overseas). I've met him through a mutual friend, and he's very approachable and I'm sure he'd be willing to point you in the right direction. -- ] (]) 11:19, 18 September 2009 (UTC)
:::::Agreed, Jack. Geoffrey Lancaster is very approachable on this topic. He loves to help people become more informed about historically informed performance. I audited a class of his last year (one I found out about through a different mutual friend), and it helped me understand not just the music, but the dance (which is more important to me). He's also a very clever man. ] (]) 03:39, 19 September 2009 (UTC)
::...towards the treatise of ], perhaps? Remember that the circle of twenty-four keys were fully accessible only to strings: the valved trumpet made its heroic debut in E flat. The concert repertory itself helps cement associations, even to create them: if E flat is "heroic", part of the nexus of associations the key carries is ].

== objective measure of whether a company, country, etc. is evil? ==

Is there an objective way to learn whether a company, like Shell Oil, or a country, like Israel, is "really" (objectively) evil or good?
:You'll have to be much more precise about "company", "country", "evil" and "good". ] (]) 12:14, 18 September 2009 (UTC)
:: are you serious? How do you suggest I phrase what I obviously have in mind? --] (]) 12:20, 18 September 2009 (UTC)

:::The answer you need is, No, there is no objective measure of whether one corporation in an extractive industry or one local nation is "evil", for it is difficult enough to ascertain the social effects even of a single public policy, and "evil" applies only to human beings. --] (]) 12:29, 18 September 2009 (UTC)
::::Evil applies to human beings? That's one view. (Which of course illustrates the problem with the question - try to answer it, and you'll get a religious war instead. This is one good reason not to ask too many abstract moral questions. There's probably someone hungry or sick or homeless of hopeless who could use your help while you're philosophizing...) -]<sup>(])</sup> 01:43, 19 September 2009 (UTC)

:::{{ec}}I'm not entirely sure what you have in mind. When you talk about a "company", are you talking about its directors, its employees, its management, its shareholders, its products, its clients or all of the above? Does "evil" refer to something that's bad for the environment, bad for humanity, illegal, immoral or something else entirely.<p>So if you're asking whether there is an objective way to learn whether any of the employees of a company have done anything illegal, the answer is probably "yes" but I don't think that's what you want. ] (]) 12:31, 18 September 2009 (UTC)

:You really do need an objective measure of evil or good first. The you could apply it to the company (group of individuals) and the consequences of their actions.
:However before you can do that you need to decide whether or not ] <small>ie that it is possible to be truly objective about moral concepts</small> is a valid concept (in any or one of its forms); ''a problem occurs here unless you can show your opinion on that to be objective and not subjective''.
:To be honest it's impossible to do at 100% certainty, all that can be obtained it seems is a personal certainty of any subjective views held. ] (]) 12:47, 18 September 2009 (UTC)

:As others have said, it all depends on your benchmark. ] monitors commercial and political corruption and publishes a ] and a ]. ] does a similar job and publishes an annual . ] monitors human rights and publihses an , as does . ] (]) 13:33, 18 September 2009 (UTC)

From your answers I feel pretty confident that Israel could do anything it wanted and I would not consider it evil as a consequence. All of these reports out in the news recently bashing Israel are from people who have different sympathies from mine, that's all. ] (]) 17:21, 18 September 2009 (UTC)

:I forget which one, but a prominent Russian author posited that stupidity equals evil. So, what's the stupidest country or company you can think of? One that's stayed in business for a while, or you wouldn't know that it exists. Hence evil does not exist. ] (]) 18:08, 18 September 2009 (UTC)

::"Evil" is a moral term, thus not quantifiable by objective scientific measurement. So the answers that you are likely to receive will be based on the respondant's personal judgment.

::While numerous related items (Life Expectancy, Percentage of Population as Political Prisoners, Average Personal Income, Availability of Affordable Education, Housing, and Medical Care, Whether US 1st Amendment Rights are In Place and Honored, &c) may be statistically measured, determining what constitutes evil still remains a personal judgment call.

::Keeping this short to avoid being accused of soapboxing, I would suggest that the first test is whether the government deliberately kills (or does nothing to prevent the killing of) its own citizens. ] under the ] is one example. Reducing citizenship levels to allow the slaughter of law-abiding populations (as in ]) is only different from the former as a public-relations ploy for the international community of nations that are willing to keep quiet and make no objection. Again, this last paragraph is merely my opinion and not objective proof. ] (]) 18:43, 18 September 2009 (UTC)

You might be interested in the documentary "]" made back in 2007 by Debra Koons Garcia. Many people suspect that the idea of securing control over seeds and materials like the material used to insulate wire at extremely high temperatures is the result of the belief of the Jewish people that God commanded them to dominate the Earth and all that was not Jewish. Due to the effect on many non-Jews of this direction many non-Jews see the Jews and hence the companies or countries that support this protocol, if you can call it that, as extremely evil. <small>--<font face="rage italic" size="4.5" color="LightSteelBlue"> ]</font> (])</small> 01:33, 19 September 2009 (UTC)

:Seriously? Are you asserting that Jews or Israelis have "control over seeds" and certain types of wire insulation, and that this oppresses non-Jews? This is bizarre and you're going to have to cite sources. ] (]) 05:29, 19 September 2009 (UTC)
::I'm only asserting that in the above documentary the finger is pointed at Monsanto who bought up most of the seed companies in the world to patent each and every seed that had not been previously patented. Monsanto raised eybrows when it began to wage war on farmers over plants that showed up on the borders of their fields which got there without the farmer's knowledge or help. You can get the details from court records after seeing an overview from the documentary. It was not until the courts sided with Monsanto and Dupont that many people began to ask questions and to speculate an agenda migh be involved. The part about seeds is documented above. You could possibly check and see who owns Monsanto and Dupont to see if the speculation over motive has any chance of being true. <small>--<font face="rage italic" size="4.5" color="LightSteelBlue"> ]</font> (])</small> 06:31, 19 September 2009 (UTC)

== Identifying terms ==

What is the term that describes someone who insults/ridicules another person? The insulter does so because s/he secretly has the same issues that s/he is insulting with. Also, what are some arguments that I can use in which someone who had a troubled life but they are still on the right path? For instance, Abraham Lincoln had a lot of failures before be became President of the US. I want to explain to someone that although things in my life are great at the moment, it doesn't mean that I am on the wrong path to success/happiness/whatever. thanks --] (]) 13:12, 18 September 2009 (UTC)

:Terminology in that department may have to be imagistic, because it crosses more than one line. I wouldn't be afraid of mixed metaphors if I were you. You might want to say something like, "My kite is flying at half mast but it doesn't mean my ship hasn't come in." ] (]) 13:19, 18 September 2009 (UTC)
::Take a look at ] ] (]) 13:25, 18 September 2009 (UTC)
:::I would call the first person a ]. "Do as I say, not as I do" type of thing. Or at the very least, inconsistent.] (]) 18:57, 18 September 2009 (UTC)

== Seraching for the reference of a Buddha quote ==

Does anyone knows where the famous Buddha quote "It's your mind that creates this world" is from? What is the source? A sutra? A teaching? Which? THANKS! ] (]) 17:44, 18 September 2009 (UTC)

:<blockquote>The world is led by mind<br>And drawn by mind.<br>All phenomena are controlled<br>By one phenomenon, mind.</blockquote>] 1.39.10-11.&mdash;] 18:16, 18 September 2009 (UTC)

:: Looks like ] to me. ] (]) 19:36, 18 September 2009 (UTC)

== Rosh Hashana Shofar ==

Is the shofar being played tonight on Rosh Hashana services, even though it falls on Shabbat? Will it be played tomorrow? Thanks, ] (]) 23:02, 18 September 2009 (UTC)

:Yes/Yes. ] (]) 01:23, 19 September 2009 (UTC)

= September 19 =

== Participation of wealthy people in WWI - conscription ==

Did people of a high status or the wealthy have to fight or participate in World War I? Or did only people of lower classes participate in the fighting? Thanks in advance.

] (]) 04:02, 19 September 2009 (UTC)

:According to by Priscilla Mary Roberts, "young public school men from the professional classes and the aristocracy joined the forces in disproportionate numbers during the war's early years, and the casualties these social classes suffered were also considerably in excess of the general population." ] states that, in Britain, the term implicitly refers to the perceived inordinate casualties borne by the upper class. ] (]) 07:30, 19 September 2009 (UTC)

== Irish vs Germans in America ==

Why is it considered mainstream American to be German, but not Irish? Aren't the Irish from the British Isles, like the Colonists and Founding Fathers, whereas the Germans are Continental Europeans like the French, Swiss and Austrians? After all, there was no German country which colonized any of the present US apart from the Northern Mariana Islands. The closest to German in the historical records, to have any colonies in the US as it existed in 1776, were the population descended from New Netherland and New Sweden. Their settlements were pretty much hemmed in by English conquest, in which the proprietors were Catholics, such as Lord Baltimore and the Duke of York, who were friendly to Irish indentured servants, even though other colonies refused them. I guess one could say that if there was a German land to provide colonial background to America, it would have been the Duchy of Brunswick, Luneburg and Westphalia, in connection to the British House of Hanover. There was a Hessian dynasty in Sweden after New Sweden was conquered by the Dutch, whose Stadhouder Willem III later kicked out the Duke of York aka James II of England, for what seemed like revenge in the Anglo-Dutch Wars. As to the Germans being a backbone of Americana...I just don't see it. They refused to conform to English culture into the 19th century, with German societies and newspapers. The Amish are the original example of multiculturalism in America, calling everybody else: "English", whilst they never want to give up their German identity. So then we come to the Irish issue; apart from religious or political estrangement from their insular relatives, there is nothing dissimilar in their cultural constitution from Americana. For instance, when I hear or see performances of Irish Catholic pub music, compared to Appalachian Baptist country music, there is little to commend in trying to find a difference, except the Irish are more instrumental. Enlighten me. How have the Germans managed to co-opt Americana to the point where people believe they are representative of Americans, or the idea that they are the "normal White American"? I don't understand it. I'm American as we come and have a hard time finding any Germans in my family or family tree for several generations, if at all. Plus, I'm puzzled by the attempt by Germans to make it seem like I could be a traitor to my country or people, if I am not entranced by Central European issues, especially WWII. What are these people getting at?
:I don't know where you got that idea. Most American-Germans I know are treated like second class citizens although in both direct and indirect ways. Same with Italians even though America is named after one. Main strean is considered those of British and Irish descent. French, odly enough are not while Hispanics are an up and coming class even though a lot of ranching can be traced back to the Spanish. Because America is a melting pot though Americans of mixed ancestry (White races only) are considered main-main stream America. In fact if you are Black, even if you are President of the US you are still not considered main stream America. Why? Who the heck knows? <small>--<font face="rage italic" size="4.5" color="LightSteelBlue"> ]</font> (])</small> 08:12, 19 September 2009 (UTC)
::Did we just go through a time-warp and it's 1942 now? Americans of German ancestry are not victims of any discrimination I've seen in my lifetime. They're white, northern Europeans, just like Americans of English or Irish ancestry. While the Irish and the Germans both experienced discrimination long ago in the USA, they don't any more, that I'm aware of. Do you have any recent examples? ] <sup>'']''</sup> ] 09:50, 19 September 2009 (UTC)
:::Consider that German's participated on the side of the British during the Revolutionary War and were not on the American side during WWI & WWII. Germans in Germany have always been, how should I put it, absolute? The British at least have to keep a stiff upper lip while the Germans got theirs in the womb. You must be talking about the Germans who were lucky enough to escape Germany while the absolute ones were passed out from drinking too much beer and were allowed to settle here on condition. <small>--<font face="rage italic" size="4.5" color="LightSteelBlue"> ]</font> (])</small> 10:32, 19 September 2009 (UTC)

Let's get back to the original question, "Why is it considered mainstream American to be German, but not Irish?" My question is: WHO SAYS SO? What's the basis for that? There's no discrimination against either Irish-Americans or German-Americans that I'm aware of. If there is, I'd like to see some examples. And I don't mean World Wars I or II, or the Molly Maguires, I mean ''nowadays''. ] <sup>'']''</sup> ] 10:39, 19 September 2009 (UTC)

== Germanic derivative of Celtic, Celtic derivative of Italic, Italic derivative of Greek, etc. ==

In past times, it was accepted academic opinion, that this was the format of lingual and cultural diffusion in ancient Europe. Why is this no longer so?

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January 11

JeJu AirFlight 2216

Is this the beginning of a new conspiracy theory? On 11 January, the Aviation and Railway Accident Investigation Board stated that both the CVR and FDR had stopped recording four minutes before the aircraft crashed.

Why would the flight recorder stop recording after the bird strike? Don't they have backup battery for flight recorders? Ohanian (talk) 09:59, 11 January 2025 (UTC)

Do you mean JeJu Air Flight 2216? Stanleykswong (talk) 14:27, 11 January 2025 (UTC)
Yes, you are right, flight 2216 not 2219. I have updated the title. Ohanian (talk) 14:51, 11 January 2025 (UTC)

It says on[REDACTED] that "With the reduced power requirements of solid-state recorders, it is now practical to incorporate a battery in the units, so that recording can continue until flight termination, even if the aircraft electrical system fails. ". So how can the CVR stop recording the pilot's voices??? Ohanian (talk) 10:11, 11 January 2025 (UTC)

The aircraft type was launched in 1994, this particular aircraft entered service in 2009. It may have had an older type of recorder.
I too am puzzled by some aspects of this crash, but I'm sure the investigators will enlighten us when they're ready. PiusImpavidus (talk) 11:41, 11 January 2025 (UTC)
Having looked into this briefly, it sounds like an independent power supply for the CVR (generally called a Recorder Independent Power Supply/RIPS) was only mandated for aircraft manufacturer from 2010 in the US . I doubt anyone else required them before. So not particularly surprising if this aircraft didn't have one. I think, but am not sure, that even in the US older aircraft aren't required to be retrofitted with these newer recorders. (See e.g. .) In fact, the only regulator I could find with such a mandate is the Canadian one and that isn't until 2026 at the earliest . Of course even if the FAA did require it, it's a moot point unless it was required for any aircraft flying to the US and this aircraft was flying to the US. I doubt it was required in South Korea given that it doesn't seem to be required in that many other places. There is a lot of confusing discussion about what the backup system if any on this aircraft would have been like . The most I gathered from these discussions is that because the aircraft was such an old design where nearly everything was mechanical, a backup power supply wasn't particularly important in its design. The only expert commentary in RS I could find was in Reuters "a former transport ministry accident investigator, said the discovery of the missing data from the budget airline's Boeing 737-800 jet's crucial final minutes was surprising and suggests all power, including backup, may have been cut, which is rare." Note that the RIPS only have to work for 10 minutes, I think the timeline of this suggests power should not have been lost for 10 minutes at the 4 minutes point, but it's not something I looked in to. BTW, I think this is sort of explained in some of the other sources but if not see . Having a RIPS is a little more complicated than just having a box with a battery. There's no point recording nothing so you need to ensure that the RIPS is connected to/powering mics in the cabin. Nil Einne (talk) 01:28, 12 January 2025 (UTC)
The aircraft made 13 flights in 48 hours, meaning less than 3.7 hours per flight. Is it too much? Its last flight from Bangkok to Korea had a normal flight time for slightly more than 5 hours. Does it mean the pilots had to rush through preflight checks? Stanleykswong (talk) 15:31, 11 January 2025 (UTC)
With this kind of schedule, it is questionable that the aircraft is well-maintained. Stanleykswong (talk) 15:32, 11 January 2025 (UTC)

The OP seems to be obsessed with creating a new conspiracy theory out of very little real information, and even less expertise. Perhaps a new hobby is in order? DOR (ex-HK) (talk) 19:37, 11 January 2025 (UTC)

Just for info, the article is Jeju Air Flight 2216. This question has not yet been raised at the Talk page there. Thanks. Martinevans123 (talk) 19:42, 11 January 2025 (UTC)

...nor should it be, per WP:TALK. Shantavira| 10:03, 12 January 2025 (UTC)
I disagree. It's quite a critical aspect in the investigation of the accident. Not sure it's some kind of "conspiracy", however. Martinevans123 (talk) 10:18, 12 January 2025 (UTC)
But I suggest it should only be raised if, and to the extent that, it is mentioned in Reliable sources, not OR speculated about by/in the Misplaced Pages article or (at length) the Talk page. On the Talk page it might be appropriate to ask if there are Reliable sources discussing it. {The poster formerly known as 87.81.230.195} 94.8.29.20 (talk) 10:53, 12 January 2025 (UTC)
Quite. Martinevans123 (talk) 10:54, 12 January 2025 (UTC)
Have now posed the question there. Martinevans123 (talk) 12:07, 12 January 2025 (UTC)

Fortune 500

Is there any site where one can view complete Fortune 500 and Fortune Global 500 for free? These indices are so widely used so is there such a site? --40bus (talk) 20:05, 11 January 2025 (UTC)

You can view the complete list here: https://fortune.com/ranking/global500/ Stanleykswong (talk) 21:50, 11 January 2025 (UTC)

January 12

Questions

  1. Why did the United Kingdom not seek euro adoption when it was in EU?
  2. Why did Russia, Belarus and Ukraine not join EU during Eastern Enlargement in 2004, unlike many other former Eastern Bloc countries?
  3. Why is Russia not in NATO?
  4. If all African countries are in AU, why are all European countries not in EU?
  5. Why Faroe Islands and Greenland have not become sovereign states yet?
  6. Can non-sovereign states or country subdivisions have embassies?
  7. Why French overseas departments have not become sovereign states yet? --40bus (talk) 13:35, 12 January 2025 (UTC)
    I see that UCL offer a course on Modern European History & Politics. Had you considered that, perhaps? Martinevans123 (talk) 13:43, 12 January 2025 (UTC)
    1. See: United Kingdom and the euro
    2. Russia, Belarus and Ukraine do not meet the criteria for joining the European Union
    3. If you google "Nato's primary purpose", you will know.
    4. The two do not have logical connection.
    5. They are too small to be an independent country
    6. Non-sovereign states or countries, for example Wales and Scotland, are countries within a sovereign state. They don't have embassies of their own.
    7. Unlike the British territories, all people living in the French territories are fully enfranchised and can vote for the French national assembly, so they are fully represented in the French democracy and do not have the need of becoming a sovereign state.
    Stanleykswong (talk) 15:16, 12 January 2025 (UTC)
    Some of the French overseas territories are Overseas collectivities with a degree of autonomy from Paris, whilst New Caledonia has a special status and may be edging towards full independence. I imagine all the overseas territories contain at least some people who would prefer to be fully independent, there's a difference between sending a few representatives to the government of a larger state and having your own sovereign state (I offer no opinion on the merits/drawbacks of such an aspiration). Chuntuk (talk) 13:06, 15 January 2025 (UTC)
Too many questions all at once… but to address the first with an overly simplistic answer: The British preferred the Pound. It had been one of the strongest currencies in the world for generations, and keeping it was a matter of national pride. Blueboar (talk) 14:03, 12 January 2025 (UTC)
1. See United Kingdom and the euro
2. "... geopolitical considerations, such as preserving Russia’s status as a former imperial power, is more important to Moscow than economic issues when it comes to foreign policy. Russia’s sees relations with the EU to be much less important than bilateral relations with the EU member-states that carry the most political weight, namely France, Germany and, to some extent, Britain. Russia thus clearly emphasizes politics over economics. While NATO enlargement was seen by Moscow to be a very important event, Russia barely noticed the enlargement of the EU on May 1." Russia and the European Union (May 2004). See also Russia–European Union relations.
3. See Russia–NATO relations.
Alansplodge (talk) 14:10, 12 January 2025 (UTC)
(5) They're too small? Somebody tell Vatican City, Nauru (21 km) and Tuvalu (26 km) they have no business being nations. Clarityfiend (talk) 03:08, 13 January 2025 (UTC)
More like economically too weak. From our article on the Faroe Islands: “In 2011, 13% of the Faroe Islands' national income consists of economic aid from Denmark, corresponding to roughly 5% of GDP.” They're net recipients of taxpayer money; no way they could have built their largely underground road network themselves. The Faroe Islands have no significant agriculture, little industry or tourism. The only thing they really have is fishing rights in their huge exclusive economic zone, but an economy entirely dependent on fishing rights is vulnerable. They could try as a tax haven, but competing against the Channel Islands or Cayman Islands won't be easy. Greenland has large natural resources, including rare earth metals, and developing mining would generate income, but also pollute the environment and destroy Greenlandic culture. PiusImpavidus (talk) 10:23, 13 January 2025 (UTC)
First, because of religious reason, Vatican City is very unique. Second, although it is technically an independent state, according to Article 22 of the Lateran Treaty, people sentenced to imprisonment by Vatican City serve their time in prison in Italy. Third, Saint Peter's Square is actually patrolled by Italian police. Its security and defence heavily relies on Italy. Its situation is similar to Liechtenstein whose security and defence are heavily relies on Austria and Switzerland and its sentenced persons are serving their time in Austria. The key common point of these small states are they’re inland states surrounded by rich and friendly countries that they can trust. Stanleykswong (talk) 10:32, 13 January 2025 (UTC)
As for Nauru and Tuvalu, the two states located near the equator, they are quite far away from other countries that would pose a threat to their national security. The temperature, the reef islands and the atolls around them provide them with ample natural resources. However, even gifted with natural resources, these small pacific ocean islands are facing problems of low living standard, low GDP per capital and low HDI.
Back to the case of Faroe Islands and Greenland, people of these two places enjoy a relatively higher living standard and higher HDI than previously mentioned island states because they have the edge of being able to save a lot of administrative and security costs. If one day Faroe Islands and Greenland became independent, they will face other problems of independence, including problems similar to the fishing conflicts between UK and Norway. The future could be troublesome if Faroe Islands and Greenland ever sought independence from Demark. Stanleykswong (talk) 10:45, 13 January 2025 (UTC)
Someone's bored again and expecting us to entertain them. Nanonic (talk) 15:59, 12 January 2025 (UTC)
40bus often asks mass questions like this on the Language Ref. Desk. Now you get to enjoy him on the Humanities Ref. Desk. The answers to 2, 3, and 4 are somewhat the same -- the African Union is basically symbolic, while the EU and NATO are highly-substantive, and don't admit nations for reasons of geographic symmetry only. AnonMoos (talk) 06:38, 13 January 2025 (UTC)

January 13

reference behind Maxine_(given_name)

from Season 4 Episode 12 of the West Wing:

They all begin to exit.

BARTLET Maxine.

C.J. That's you.

JOSH I know.

Leo, C.J., and Toby leave.

What is Maxine referencing here? From the context of the scene, it's probably a historical figure related to politics or the arts. I went over the list in Maxine_(given_name) but couldn't find anything I recognize. Epideurus (talk) 20:36, 13 January 2025 (UTC)

(I asked on the Humanities desk instead of the Entertainment desk because I'm guessing the reference isn't a pop-culture one but a historical one.) Epideurus (talk) 20:37, 13 January 2025 (UTC)

According to fandom.com: "When the President calls Josh Maxine, he refers to Hallmark Cards character Maxine, known for demanding people to agree with her." . --Amble (talk) 21:17, 13 January 2025 (UTC)
Based on the cards I see here, Maxine is more snarky than demanding agreement. I don't know her that well, but I think she might even be wary of agreement, suspecting it to be faked out of facile politeness.  --Lambiam 23:32, 13 January 2025 (UTC)
More background on Maxine here: https://agefriendlyvibes.com/blogs/news/maxine-the-birth-of-the-ageist-birthday-card Chuntuk (talk) 18:24, 14 January 2025 (UTC)

January 14

Ministerial confirmation hearings

Is there any parliamentary democracy in which all a prime minister's choices for minister are questioned by members of parliament before they take office and need to be accepted by them in order to take office? Mcljlm (talk) 18:36, 14 January 2025 (UTC)

No individual grilling sessions, but in Israel the Knesset has to approve the prime minister's choices.  Card Zero  (talk) 07:33, 15 January 2025 (UTC)

Is an occupied regime a country?

If a regime A of a country is mostly occupied by regime B, and regime B is later recognized as the representative of the country, while regime A, unable to reclaim control of the entire country, claims that it is itself a country and independent of regime B. the questio"n arises: is regim"e A a country? 36.230.3.161 (talk) 18:43, 14 January 2025 (UTC)

Are you talking about a Government-in-exile? Blueboar (talk) 19:09, 14 January 2025 (UTC)
This is based on the definition of a country. Anyone in any place can claim to be a country. There is no legal paperwork required. There is no high court that you go to and make your claim to be a country. The first step is simply making the claim, "We are an independent country." Then, other countries have to recognize that claim. It is not 100%. There are claims where a group claims to be a country but nobody else recognizes it as a country, such as South Ossetia. There are others that have been recognized in the past, but not currently, such as Taiwan. There are some that are recognized by only a few countries, such as Abkhazia. From another point of view. There are organizations that claim they have the authority to declare what is and is not a country, such as the United Nations. But, others do not accept their authority on the matter. In the end, there is no way clearly define what is a country, which makes this question difficult to answer. 68.187.174.155 (talk) 20:46, 14 January 2025 (UTC)
Taiwan is a country, although I suppose the fact that this has multiple citations says something. (Mainly, it says that the CCP would like to edit it out.)  Card Zero  (talk) 06:46, 15 January 2025 (UTC)
I assumed that everyone was referring to independent countries. I think this is exactly what the question is about. Our article says Taiwan is part of China. China is a country. So, Taiwan is part of a country and not a country by itself. But, the article says it is a country. So, it is independent. It isn't part of China. Which is true? Both? 68.187.174.155 (talk) 20:51, 21 January 2025 (UTC)
"Our article says Taiwan is part of China." Where does it say that? --User:Khajidha (talk) (contributions) 15:40, 22 January 2025 (UTC)
Instead of trying to draft an abstract, do you have a concrete example you're thinking of? --Golbez (talk) 20:57, 14 January 2025 (UTC)
One should always maintain a distinguish between countries and the regimes administering them. Syria was not the Assad regime – Assad is gone but Syria remains. Likewise, Russia is not the Putin regime. Identifying the two can only lead to confusion.
What makes a geographic region (or collection of regions) a country – more precisely, a sovereign state? There are countless territorial disputes, several of which are sovereignty disputes; for example, the regimes of North and South Korea claim each other's territory and deny each other's sovereignty over the territory the other effectively administers. Each has its own list of supporters of their claims. Likewise, the People's Republic of China and Republic of China claim each other's territory. By the definition of dispute, there is no agreement in such cases on the validity of such claims. The answer to the question whether the contested region in a sovereignty dispute is a country depends on which side of the dispute one chooses, which has more to do with geopolitical interests than with any objectively applicable criteria.  --Lambiam 10:16, 15 January 2025 (UTC)
At least in part, it depends on other countries agreeing that a particular area is actually a nation and that the government that claims to represnt it has some legitimacy; see our Diplomatic recognition article. For many nations, recognition would depend on whether the Charter of the United Nations had been adhered to. Alansplodge (talk) 12:24, 15 January 2025 (UTC)

One of the peculiarities of the Cold War is the emergence of competing governments in multiple countries, along a more or less similar pattern. We had West and East Germany, South and North Vietnam, South and North Korea and ROC and PRC. The only thing that separates the Chinese case from the onset is that there was no usage of the terms West China (for PRC) and East China (for ROC), since the ROC control was limited to a single province (and a few minor islands). Over time the ROC lost most of its diplomatic recognition, and the notion that the government in Taipei represented all of China (including claims on Mongolia etc) became anachronistic. Gradually over decades, in the West it became increasingly common to think of Taiwan as a separate country as it looked separate from mainland China on maps and whatnot. Somewhat later within Taiwan itself political movements wanted (in varying degrees) to abandon the ROC and declare the island as a sovereign state of its own grew. Taiwanese nationalism is essentially a sort of separatism from the ROC ruling Taiwan. In all of the Cold War divided countries, there have been processes were the political separation eventually becomes a cultural and social separation as well. At the onset everyone agrees that the separation is only a political-institutional technicality, but over time societies diverge. Even 35 years after the end of the GDR, East Germans still feel East German. In Korea and China there is linguistic divergence, as spelling reforms and orthography have developed differently under different political regimes. --Soman (talk) 10:41, 16 January 2025 (UTC)

The difference with Taiwan vs. the other Cold War governments is that pre-ROC Taiwan was under Japanese rule. Whereas other governments split existing countries, Taiwan was arguably a separate entity already. Butterdiplomat (talk) 14:02, 18 January 2025 (UTC)
For the UK, the long-standing diplomatic position is that they recognise governments not countries, which has often avoided such complicated tangles. Johnbod (talk) 14:30, 18 January 2025 (UTC)
To further complicate the issue with Taiwan... When the United States had a trade ban with China, most of the cheap goods shipped into the United States had a "Made in Taiwan" sticker. That was OK because hte United States recognized Taiwan as being completely separate from China. It was a bit odd that Taiwan could produce as much as it did. The reality is that they simply made "Made in Taiwan" stickers and put them on Chinese goods before sending them to the United States. When the trade ban was lifted, there was no need to route all the goods through Taiwan. Now, everything has "Made in China" stickers on them and the United States no longer recognizes Taiwan as an independent country. From a simplistic point of view, it appears that the recognition of status was based on convenience rather than political standing. 68.187.174.155 (talk) 15:14, 22 January 2025 (UTC)

Photos in a novel

I'm reading a certain novel. In the middle of Chapter II (written in the first person), there are three pages containing photos of the hotel the author is writing about. Flicking through I find another photo towards the end of the book. I think: this must be a memoir, not a novel. I check, but every source says it's a novel.

I've never encountered anything like this before: photos in a novel. Sure, novels are often based on real places, real people etc, but they use words to tell the story. Photos are the stuff of non-fiction. Are there any precedents for this? -- Jack of Oz 20:59, 14 January 2025 (UTC)

If anyone's interested, the novel is Forest Dark by Nicole Krauss. -- Jack of Oz 21:00, 14 January 2025 (UTC)

IIRC Loving Monsters by James Hamilton-Patterson has some photos in it. DuncanHill (talk) 21:03, 14 January 2025 (UTC)
Bruges-la-Morte by Georges Rodenbach, 1892. DuncanHill (talk) 21:13, 14 January 2025 (UTC)
I can quickly go to the fiction stacks and pull a dozen books with photos in them. It is common that the photos are in the middle of the book because of the way the book pressing works. 68.187.174.155 (talk) 21:16, 14 January 2025 (UTC)
Really? I would like to hear some examples of what you're referring to. Like Jack, I think the appearance of photos in (adult) fiction is rare. The novels of W. G. Sebald are one notable exception. --Viennese Waltz 21:31, 14 January 2025 (UTC)
This post in a blog "with an emphasis on W.G. Sebald and literature with embedded photographs" may be of interest. DuncanHill (talk) 23:44, 14 January 2025 (UTC)
Fascinating. Thanks. So, this is actually a thing. Someone should add it to our List of Things that are Things. -- Jack of Oz 18:30, 16 January 2025 (UTC)
The word "adult" did not come up until you just decided to use it there. I stated that there are many fiction paperback books with a middle section of graphics, which commonly include images of photographs. You replied that that is rare in adult fiction. 68.187.174.155 (talk) 00:42, 15 January 2025 (UTC)
Photonovels, you mean?  Card Zero  (talk) 06:59, 15 January 2025 (UTC)
It was assumed that we are talking about adult fiction, yes. --Viennese Waltz 09:06, 15 January 2025 (UTC)
I found Photography-Embedded Literature – Annual Lists, 2010-present, a "bibliography of works of fiction and poetry... containing embedded photographs". Alansplodge (talk) 12:28, 15 January 2025 (UTC)
I have no idea how to paste a photo in here. What I am referring to is fiction paperback novels. They don't have to be fiction. Some are non-fiction. That is not the point. The book is a normal paperback, but in the middle of the book the pages are not normal paperback paper. They are a more glossy paper and printed in color with pictures. There is usually four to eight pages of pictures embedded into the middle of the otherwise normal paperback novel. It is very common in young adult novels where they don't want a fully graphic book (like children's books), but they still want some pictures. Out of all the novels where there is a graphic insert in the middle, some of the graphics on those pages are photographs. I've been trying to find an image on Google of books where the center of the book is shiny picture papges, but it keeps pushing me to "Make a photo album book" services. 68.187.174.155 (talk) 13:34, 15 January 2025 (UTC)
Can you name one adult fiction (not YA or children's) novel which has a section of photographs in the middle? --Viennese Waltz 14:00, 15 January 2025 (UTC)
So having photos in the middle of a book is quite common in non-fiction (example: I have a bio of Winston Churchill that has photos of him during various stages of his life). Publishers do this to make printing easier (as the photos use a different paper, it is easier to bind them in the middle… and photos don’t reproduce as well on the paper used for text).
It is certainly rarer for there to be photos in works of fiction, simply because the characters and places described in the story are, well, fictional. But it obviously can be done (example: if the fictional story is set in a real place, a series of photos of that place might help the reader envision the events that the story describes). Blueboar (talk) 13:57, 15 January 2025 (UTC)
I just realized another area for confusion. I was personally considering a any image that looks like a photo to be a photo. But, others may be excluding fictional photographs and only considering actual photographs. If that is the case, the obvious example (still toung adult fiction) would be Carmen Sandiego books, which are commonly packed with photographs of cities, even if they do photoshop an image of the bad guy into them. 68.187.174.155 (talk) 18:57, 15 January 2025 (UTC)
Tom Hanks's novel The Making of Another Major Motion Picture Masterpiece tells a story of adapting a comic book into a movie, and includes several pages of that comic book and related ones. (To be clear, these are fictitious comic books, a fiction within a fiction). Where the comic book was printed in color, the book contains a block of pages on different paper as is common in non-fiction.
...and then of course there's William Boyd's novel Nat Tate: An American Artist 1928–1960, which is a spoof biography of an artist, including purported photos of the main character and reproductions of his artworks (actually created by Boyd himself). As our article about the book explains, some people in the art world were fooled. Turner Street (talk) 10:30, 17 January 2025 (UTC)

January 15

Refusing royal assent

Are there any circumstances where the British monarch would be within their rights to withhold royal assent without triggering a constitutional crisis. I'm imagining a scenario where a government with a supermajority passed legislation abolishing parliament/political parties, for example? I know it's unlikely but it's an interesting hypothetical.

If the monarch did refuse, what would happen? Would they eventually have to grant it, or would the issue be delegated to the Supreme Court or something like that? --Andrew 14:38, 15 January 2025 (UTC)

Our Royal assent article says: In 1914, George V took legal advice on withholding Royal Assent from the Government of Ireland Bill; then highly contentious legislation that the Liberal government intended to push through Parliament by means of the Parliament Act 1911. He decided not to withhold assent without "convincing evidence that it would avert a national disaster, or at least have a tranquillising effect on the distracting conditions of the time". Alansplodge (talk) 15:05, 15 January 2025 (UTC)
Not British, but there was the 1990 case of King Baudouin of Belgium, whose conscience and Catholic faith would not permit him to grant assent to a bill that would liberalise Belgium's abortion laws. A solution was found:
  • (quote from article) In 1990, when a law submitted by Roger Lallemand and Lucienne Herman-Michielsens that liberalized Belgium's abortion laws was approved by Parliament, he refused to give royal assent to the bill. This was unprecedented; although Baudouin was de jure Belgium's chief executive, royal assent has long been a formality (as is the case in most constitutional and popular monarchies). However, due to his religious convictions—the Catholic Church opposes all forms of abortion—Baudouin asked the government to declare him temporarily unable to reign so that he could avoid signing the measure into law. The government under Wilfried Martens complied with his request on 4 April 1990. According to the provisions of the Belgian Constitution, in the event the king is temporarily unable to reign, the government as a whole assumes the role of head of state. All government members signed the bill, and the next day (5 April 1990) the government called the bicameral legislature in a special session to approve a proposition that Baudouin was capable of reigning again.
There's no such provision in the UK Constitution as far as I'm aware, although Regents can be and have been appointed in cases of physical incapacity. -- Jack of Oz 15:21, 15 January 2025 (UTC)
A more likely scenario in your hypothesis is that the Opposition could bring the case to the Supreme Court of the United Kingdom who have the power make rulings on constitutional matters; an enample was Boris Johnson's decision to prorogue Parliament in 2019. 15:23, 15 January 2025 (UTC)
There is the ability to delegate powers to Counsellors of State. There are restrictions on what powers can be delegated in section 6(1) of the Regency Act 1937, but I don't see anything prohibiting the monarch from delegating the power to grant Royal Assent. He could then temporarily absent himself from the UK (perhaps on an impromptu trip to another Commonwealth Realm) so that the Counsellors of State could grant such Assent during his absence. Proteus (Talk) 15:40, 23 January 2025 (UTC)

Fratelli Gianfranchi

Can anyone find any information about Fratelli Gianfranchi, sculptor(s) of the Statue of George Washington (Trenton, New Jersey)? I assume wikt:fratelli means brothers, but I could be wrong.

References

  1. "Daily Telegraph: A New Statue of Washington". Harrisburg Telegraph. Harrisburg, Pennsylvania. August 18, 1876. p. 1 – via Newspapers.com. The statue was executed by Fratelli Gianfranchi, of Carrara, Italy, who modeled it from Leutze's masterpiece

TSventon (talk) 15:31, 15 January 2025 (UTC)

"Fratelli Gianfranchi" would be translated as "Gianfranchi Brothers" with Gianfranchi being the surname. Looking at Google Books there seems to have existed a sculptor called Battista Gianfranchi from Carrara but I'm not finding much else. --82.58.35.213 (talk) 06:45, 16 January 2025 (UTC)
The city of Carrara is famous for its marble which has been exploited since Roman times, and has a long tradition of producing sculptors who work with the local material. Most of these would not be considered notable as they largely produce works made on command. Xuxl (talk) 09:53, 16 January 2025 (UTC)
Thank you both, it is helpful to have confirmation that you couldn't find any more than I did. For what it's worth, I found Battista Gianfranchi and Giuseppe Gianfranchi separately in Google books. It is interesting that, of the references in the article, the sculptor is only named in an 1876 article and not in later sources. TSventon (talk) 13:55, 16 January 2025 (UTC)
In the light of the above, the mentions in the article of "the Italian sculptor Fratelli Gianfranchi" should perhaps be modified (maybe ". . . sculptors Fratelli Gianfranchi (Gianfranchi Brothers)"), but our actual sources are thin and this would border on WP:OR.
FWIW, the Brothers (or firm) do not have an entry in the Italian Misplaced Pages, but I would have expected there to be Italian-published material about them, perhaps findable in a library or museum in Carrara. {The poster formerly known as 87.81.230.195} 94.8.29.20 (talk) 18:43, 16 January 2025 (UTC)
I have added the translation for Fratelli Gianfranchi as a footnote. I agree that more information might be available in Carrara. TSventon (talk) 20:42, 16 January 2025 (UTC)

January 16

Can I seek Chapter 15 protection while a case is ongoing in my home country or after it finished ?

Simple question. I don’t have Us citizenship, but I owe a large debt amount in New York that can’t legally exist in my home country where I currently live (at least where the 50% interest represent usury even for a factoring contract).

My contract only states that disputes should be discussed within a specific Manhattan court, it doesn’t talk about which is the applicable law beside the fact that French law states that French consumer law applies if a contract is signed if the client live in France (and the contract indeed mention my French address). This was something my creditors were unaware of (along with the fact it needs to be redacted in French to have legal force in such a case), but at that time I was needing legal protection after my first felony, and I would had failed to prove partilly non guilty if I did not got the money on time. I can repay what I borrowed with all my other debts but not the ~$35000 in interest.

Can I use Chapter 15 to redirect in part my creditors to a bankruptcy proceeding in France or is it possible to file for Chapter 15 only once a proceeding is finished ? Can I use it as an individiual or is Chapter 15 only for businesses ? 2A01:E0A:401:A7C0:6CE2:1F60:AD30:6C2F (talk) 09:13, 16 January 2025 (UTC)

We don't answer questions like that here. You should engage a lawyer. --Viennese Waltz 09:23, 16 January 2025 (UTC)
Chapter 15 bankruptcy does cover individuals and does include processes for people who are foreign citizens. The basics. 68.187.174.155 (talk) 11:24, 16 January 2025 (UTC)

January 17

Raymond Smullyan and Ayn Rand

Did Raymond Smullyan ever directly discuss or mention Ayn Rand or Objectivism? I think he might have indirectly referenced her philosophy in a a fictional symposium on truthfulness where a speaker says that he(or she) is not as "fanatical" about being as selfish as possible as an earlier speaker who said he himself was a selfish bastard.Rich (talk) 02:23, 17 January 2025 (UTC)

I guess not. Smullyan wrote so much that it is difficult to assert with certainty that he never did, but it has been pointed out by others that his Taoist philosophical stance is incompatible with Rand's Objectivism.  --Lambiam 12:23, 17 January 2025 (UTC)

January 18

"The Narrow Way" issued to prisoners in 1916

In his book 112 Days Hard Labour, about prison life in England in 1916, the Quaker Hubert Peet says:

On entry one is given a Bible, Prayer Book, and Hymn Book. In the ordinary way these would be supplemented by a curious little manual of devotion entitled “The Narrow Way,” but at the Scrubs Quakers were mercifully allowed in its place the Fellowship Hymn Book and the Friends’ Book of Discipline.

What was this book The Narrow Way?

I thought the question would be easy to answer if the book was standard issue, but I haven't found anything. (Yes, I'm aware that the title is a reference to Matthew 7:14.) Marnanel (talk) 03:46, 18 January 2025 (UTC)

Letters of a Prisoner for Conscience Sake - Page 54 (Corder Catchpool · 1941, via Google books) says "The Narrow Way , you must know , is as much a prison institution as green flannel underclothing ( awfu ' kitly , as Wee Macgregor would say ) , beans and fat bacon , superannuated “ duster " -pocket - handkerchiefs , suet pudding ... and many other truly remarkable things !" so it does seem to have been standard issue. TSventon (talk) 04:22, 18 January 2025 (UTC)
Google Books finds innumerable publishers' adverts for The Narrow Way, Being a Complete Manual of Devotion, with a Guide to Confirmation and Holy Communion, compiled by E.B. Here's one. Many of them, of widely varying date, claim that the print run is in its two hundred and forty-fifth thousand. Here it's claimed that it was first published c. 1869, and Oxford University Libraries have a copy of a new edition from as late as 1942. Apart from that, I agree, it's remarkably difficult to find anything about it. --Antiquary (talk) 12:13, 18 January 2025 (UTC)
You can buy one on eBay for £5.99. Alansplodge (talk) 15:30, 20 January 2025 (UTC)
Fun fact: a copy of The Narrow Way figures in A. A. Milne's novel The Red House Mystery. —Tamfang (talk) 22:26, 20 January 2025 (UTC)

January 19

Federal death penalty

Is there a list of federal criminal cases where the federal government sought the death penalty but the jury sentenced the defendant to life in prison instead? I know Sayfullo Saipov's case is one, but I'm unsure of any others. wizzito | say hello! 01:41, 19 January 2025 (UTC)

Official portraits of Donald Trump's first presidency

Yellow cartouche*grim*Official portrait?*grin*

Commons category Official portraits of Donald Trump (First presidency) only contains variations of the portrait with Donald Trump smiling. But Photographs of the official portrait of Donald Trump only contains photos incorporating Trump's official portrait with a vigorous facial expression, which is otherwise not even included in Commons?! This seems inconsistent - what is the background and status of either photo? --KnightMove (talk) 10:51, 19 January 2025 (UTC)

The framed portraits hanging on the wall in these photos are an official portrait from December 15, 2016, of the then president-elect. The one with bared teeth is from October 6, 2017, when Trump was in office. For two more recent official mug shots, look here.  --Lambiam 12:31, 20 January 2025 (UTC)
Ok, thank you. Do you know why the president-elect photo is not even uploaded in Commons? Shouldn't it be included in commons:Category:Official portraits of Donald Trump (First presidency)? --KnightMove (talk) 16:00, 20 January 2025 (UTC)
The most plausible reason that it was not uploaded is that no one missed it. Among those aware of its existence and having the wherewithal to find it on the Web and to upload it to the Commons, no one may have realized it had not already been uploaded. Or they may not have felt a need; there is no shortage of images in the relevant articles.
Strictly speaking, it does not belong in Category:Official portraits of Donald Trump (first presidency), as Trump was not yet president. However, Category:Official portraits of Donald Trump (second presidency) features nothing but lugubrious portraits of the president-reelect.  --Lambiam 22:56, 20 January 2025 (UTC)

January 20

Trattato delle attinie, ed osservazioni sopra alcune di esse viventi nei contorni di Venezia, accompagnate da 21 tavole litografiche del Conte Nicolò Contarin

I am trying to find the illustration’s description from the original source: Trattato delle attinie, ed osservazioni sopra alcune di esse viventi nei contorni di Venezia, accompagnate da 21 tavole litografiche del Conte Nicolò Contarin including species name and description for these sea anemones: https://www.arsvalue.com/it/lotti/541811/contarini-nicolo-bertolucci-1780-1849-trattato-delle-attinie-ed-osservazio . I requested it on the resource request page but was not able to find where in the source these illustrations are or where their descriptions are. It doesn’t help that I can’t read Italian. KAVEBEAR (talk) 00:11, 20 January 2025 (UTC)

Apparently you need to locate an occurrence of "(TAV VII)" or "(TAV XII)" in the text. --Askedonty (talk) 12:04, 20 January 2025 (UTC)
(edit conflict) References to the illustration are in the form "tavolo VII" or "tav. VII". So, for example, page 99 refers to fig. 1 e 2. The text refers to the development of the actinae being studied without precise identification, specifically to their sprouting new tentacles, not being (contra Spix) a prolongation of the skin of the base, but from parts of the body. The same page has a reference to fig. 3.  --Lambiam 12:17, 20 January 2025 (UTC)
Sorry where are you seeing this page 99 you are referring to? KAVEBEAR (talk) 20:47, 20 January 2025 (UTC)
Oops, I forgot to link. It is here (and also here).  --Lambiam 22:42, 20 January 2025 (UTC)

Pu Yi

Although member of the Chinese Communist Party, the last Emperor was an anti-communist and counter-revolutionnair until his death? — Preceding unsigned comment added by 193.207.179.151 (talk) 17:26, 20 January 2025 (UTC)Block evasion. Dekimasuよ! 18:58, 20 January 2025 (UTC)

I imagine that during the Cultural Revolution, it was wise to keep one's opinions to one's self. Alansplodge (talk) 17:31, 20 January 2025 (UTC)
Jiang Qing did apparently not get the memo.  --Lambiam 22:32, 20 January 2025 (UTC)
Situational strength can give psychological pressure on the individual and affect his or her behaviours. Stanleykswong (talk) 09:38, 21 January 2025 (UTC)

January 21

text of executive order

Hi. On 2025-01-20, POTUS signed an executive order titled "Ending Birthright Citizenship for Children of Illegal Immigrants". This event has been reported by virtually every major news outlet in the world.

It is now 2025-01-20 9PM Washington time, and I have been trying to find the exact text, or even portions of its text, for a while now, to no avail.

1. Is the full text of this executive order available to the general public?

This Library of Congress site claims that: "All Executive Orders and Proclamations issued after March 1936 are required by law to be published in the Federal Register."

2. Assuming that the above claim is true, is there any requirement or guideline on how quickly an EO is published after it has been signed by POTUS? Epideurus (talk) 02:22, 21 January 2025 (UTC)

Nevermind. The full text was posted some time around 2025-01-20 8:45PM Washington time. None of the news agencies reporting before that got the title right, so I'm guessing that the title of the EO was only released when its full text was released. Epideurus (talk) 02:49, 21 January 2025 (UTC)
As I read the order literally, it implies that persons to which birthright citizenship is denied by force of Section 2 (a) of the order can also not be naturalized at a later date (or, if they can, no department or agency of the United States government shall issue documents recognizing the acquired citizenship).  --Lambiam 10:46, 22 January 2025 (UTC)

Deadline for ratification of amendments to the US constitution

Hello, and thank you for this opportunity to ask the experts. There's been talk recently about the proposed Equal Rights Amendment to the US constitution after former president Biden stated the he considered the amendment to be ratified and part of the US constitution, as it had been ratified by 38 states, reaching the bar of three quarters of the states the Article 5 of the US constitution sets.

The National Archives disagreed and pointed to a deadline (later extended) for ratification set by Congress; since the required number of states had not been reached by the final deadline and since the deadline had not been extended further, it said, the amendment could not be considered ratified.

This appears to be plainly at odds with the text of Article Five of the United States Constitution, which contains no mention of Congress being able to impose a deadline, or in fact any other requirement, for the ratification process. The best argument I've seen in non-scholarly sources is, in essence, that "the 5th Amendment is silent on this", but that strikes me as unconvincing. The 5th prescribes a process, and there is no reason (that is readily apparent to me) to presume that this process may be changed by Congress in either direction. Just like Congress may not declare that ratification by one half of the states (rather than three quarters) is sufficient, it may not impose that additional steps must be taken or additional hurdles passed: say, it may not require that four fifths of the states must ratify and that three quarters is not enough. The Constitution prescribes what conditions are necessary for an Amendment to become part of the Constitution — but it also dictates that when these conditions are met, this does happen.

As such I find the National Archives' position to be inconsistent with the Constitution and the 5th, and Congress's attempt to impose an additional requirement in the form of a deadline strikes me as out of line with the Constitution, rendering said additional requirement null and void.

That said, and this is where my question comes in, I am not a legal expert. I haven't studied law, nor do I work in or with law in any way; I am merely curious. And although appeals to authority are fallacious as far as logical reasoning is concerned, I don't doubt that the National Archives (as well as, presumably, Congressional staff) have considered this matter and concluded that yes, a) the imposition of a deadline by Congress, above and beyond the process prescribed by the 5th, is constitutional; b) meeting of said deadline is then an additional condition for ratification; and c) since this deadline has not been met here, the ERA is not part of the Constitution.

And my question is: why? On what legal basis? Surely Congress cannot create additional requirements out of whole cloth; there must be some form of authorization in it. What's more, since we are talking about a process prescribed by the Constitution itself, said authority must itself be grounded in the Constitution, rather than taking the form of e.g. a simple law (Congress cannot arbitrarily empower itself to change the rules and processes laid down by the Constitution).

I would be very grateful if someone with a background in law (professional or otherwise) could explain this to me. Thank you very much! 2003:D5:AF0E:DE00:95C4:DF2F:3B13:850E (talk) 07:42, 21 January 2025 (UTC)

I ain't no lawyer, but as I recall, the deadline was stated within the amendment proposal itself. That was the case with a few other amendments also, but they were ratified within the time limit, so there was no issue. It's possible someone will take this issue to court, and ultimately the Supreme Court would have to decide if that type of clause is valid. On the flip side, there is the most recent amendment, which prohibits Congress from giving itself a raise without an intervening election of Representatives. That one was in the wind for like 200 years, lacking a deadline. When it was finally ratified, it stood. ←Baseball Bugs carrots11:31, 21 January 2025 (UTC)
Thank you very much for your reply, much appreciated! I didn't know the deadline was in the proposal itself. I'm not sure I'm convinced that this should make a difference, since for as long as the proposed Amendment is no part of the Constitution, it really is not part of the Constitution and should not be able to inform or affect other provisions of the Constitution. That said I of course agree that it would take the Supreme Court to decide the issue for good. Thanks again! 2003:D5:AF0E:DE00:C4C7:395C:56A3:A782 (talk) 16:59, 21 January 2025 (UTC)
The SCOTUS may be quite busy with executive orders for a while. Quite possible, that the President has to appoint another 6 or 12 judges to cope with all that work load. --Cookatoo.ergo.ZooM (talk) 18:44, 21 January 2025 (UTC)
The courts in general views these things as political questions. Abductive (reasoning) 21:59, 21 January 2025 (UTC)
The deadline for the ERA was mentioned in a resolving clause before the text of the amendment itself. In other cases, such as the Eighteenth Amendment to the United States Constitution, the deadline was contained in the amendment itself. Whether this makes any practical difference is a question for the courts. --User:Khajidha (talk) (contributions) 13:51, 22 January 2025 (UTC)
I don't understand why it is the National Archives rather than a legal/constitutional authority such as the Supreme Court that gets to decide whether a proposed amendment has become ratified or not, ie. become law or not. -- Jack of Oz 21:09, 21 January 2025 (UTC)
There is the Executive, in this case the National Archives, doing what the Chief Executive ordered them to do. And there is Congress, which set the rules. This sounds like a political question. Abductive (reasoning) 21:59, 21 January 2025 (UTC)
By a statute that took effect in 1984, the task of certifying ratifications of amendments to the US Constitution has been given to the Archivist of the United States, which is why the interpretation of the National Archives (that is, the Archivist) matters. One might argue that this statute is unconstitutional, as the Constitution does not include a provision requiring certification for ratification to take effect, unlike for other federal processes that depend on the outcomes from the several states. AFAIK the constitutionality of the statute, or any of its predecessors (like this one) has never been challenged in court.  --Lambiam 10:15, 22 January 2025 (UTC)
I see. Thank you, Lambiam. -- Jack of Oz 11:20, 22 January 2025 (UTC)
But of course there must always be some form of official certification. That would be the case for any law passed to a state governor or the president for signing, just as it must be for a constitutional change. Otherwise, anyone could claim that a proposed constitutional amendment has been ratified by a sufficient number of states and must now become part of the law of the USA. Surely the system depends on not just anyone claiming this, but a properly constituted authority with the legal power/responsibility to make such a certification. -- Jack of Oz 06:35, 23 January 2025 (UTC)
Note that there was no certification procedure for the original ratification of the United States Constitution; actually, the amendment provision of the Articles of Confederation, which required unanimous approval of the states, was bypassed. I don't think there was already one in place for the Bill of Rights either – when Congress met on on January 18, 1792, the President simply informed them that he had "a copy of an exemplified copy of an Act of the Legislature of Vermont, ratifying" the amendements, which implied a sufficient number of instruments of ratification had been received. The procedure for the ratification of the electoral votes in presidential elections was only specified in the Twelfth Amendment; the 1796 United States presidential election managed to do without. I agree, though, that there ought to be an official procedure for the ratification of constitutional amendments, but is the ability of Congress to inspect . The question is, is Congress passing (by simple majorities) a bill that such and such procedure shall be it, which is then signed into law by the President, enough to make it official and binding?
The US Constitution does not define who is "subject to the jurisdiction" of the United States. At the moment this is a hot issue. If Congress passes a bill, next signed into law, declaring that the definition is made by executive order, is the issue thereby settled?  --Lambiam 16:35, 23 January 2025 (UTC)
It's not settled until the Supreme Court says it is. ←Baseball Bugs carrots00:03, 24 January 2025 (UTC)

January 22

Sir John Simon's soul

"Simon has sat on the fence so long that the iron has entered into his soul" is a quotation attributed to David Lloyd George. I have been unable to come up with a definitive source, and neither Roy Jenkins (in The Chancellors), nor Duncan Brack (in The Dictionary of Liberal Quotations) have been able to either. Can the RefDeskers do better? Thank you. I felt sure I'd asked this here before, but I cannot find any trace of it in the archives. DuncanHill (talk) 18:49, 22 January 2025 (UTC)

I looked into this question a while ago. The earliest evidence I could find came from a diary entry by Sir George Riddell for 14th December 1912:
The other day F. E. Smith told me a good story of a member who, when speaking in the House of Commons, remarked, "Mr. So-and-So has sat for so long on the fence that the iron has entered into his soul".
It's here. Shame that no-one's named. --Antiquary (talk) 20:38, 22 January 2025 (UTC)
Both parties were named by Konni Zilliacus in 1935. Google Books also claims to have it in a version naming Lloyd George and Simon in a 1931 number of the New Statesman, but I find their dating of "Snippet view" periodicals unreliable. --Antiquary (talk) 21:03, 22 January 2025 (UTC)
I found a 1922 case of "Who was it who said of a Free Church leader: "he has sat on the fence so long that the iron has entered into his soul"?". DuncanHill (talk) 01:33, 23 January 2025 (UTC)
Ha! The Spring 1905 number of Forest Leaves magazine (here at vol. II, no. 2, p. 16) gives us this: "Winston Churchill said that Sir Henry Campbell-Bannerman 'had sat so long on the fence that the iron had entered into his soul.'" A rare example, then, of Churchillian Drift in reverse. --Antiquary (talk) 08:11, 23 January 2025 (UTC)
One more Google search tells us that Churchill said this at a meeting of the Bow and Bromley Conservative Association in, apparently, April 1905. --Antiquary (talk) 10:04, 23 January 2025 (UTC)
Oh well done! I'd always rather associated it with Manchuria. Lloyd George does have a certain gravitational pull for put-downs. I can't quite see him actually nicking one of Churchill's, and I think he would not want to associate himself, even indirectly, with such a negative comment about CB. I'm reminded by Jeeves and the Yule-tide Spirit that it is an echo of Psalm 105:18 in the Prayer Book. If I were Lawrence Frances Flick I would be VERY careful about the choice of type-face for my bookmarks DuncanHill (talk) 10:58, 23 January 2025 (UTC)
I found the Forest Leaves version (with a couple more from the column) in The Mail (Dublin) 4 January 1905. Interestingly, there was an article in lots of local papers in January 1905 which mention the iron entering Lloyd George's soul as a result of how power is abused in the hands of an ascendant Church. DuncanHill (talk) 11:16, 23 January 2025 (UTC)
Interesting. Got a link to the Mail version? --Antiquary (talk) 11:31, 23 January 2025 (UTC)
(ec) The Belfast Telegraph - Thursday 23 May 1907 says that Mr Churchill made the dig at CB "at Bow, February 19, 1902". Dublin Mail 4 Jan 1905 Column called "Mixed Metaphors" DuncanHill (talk) 11:35, 23 January 2025 (UTC)
The "iron entered his/my/our soul(s)" trope seems very common at the time, usually of course in a more positive sense. DuncanHill (talk) 11:35, 23 January 2025 (UTC)
And here is a report of Churchill addressing the Annual Meeting of the Bow and Bromley Conservative Association from the Derby Daily Telegraph Thursday 20 February 1902 Mr. Winston Churchill and the War. DuncanHill (talk) 11:39, 23 January 2025 (UTC)
The report appears in many local papers. The report in the Westminster Gazette says CB has NOT (my emphasis) sat so long on the fence that the iron has entered his soul. DuncanHill (talk)
If you have access to a copy it might be worth taking a look at the eight-volume Winston S. Churchill: His Complete Speeches, 1897-1963, edited by Robert Rhodes James. --Antiquary (talk) 14:14, 23 January 2025 (UTC)
Not in Volume I, where it should be. DuncanHill (talk) 18:11, 23 January 2025 (UTC)
The anecdote is told in a Lloyd George–John Simon version on page 472 of The New Statesman and Nation issue of October 17, 1931:
Sir John Simon's acidity of temperament and capacity for being a little in several camps but beloved by none led his late chief to remark—or so I'm told—that "Sir John has sat so long on the fence, that the iron has entered into his soul."             Critic.
Here one can verify, in spite of the snippetness of the permitted views, that this indeed the issue of this date. So it is indeed true that Lloyd George "is said" (or, more precisely, "has been said") to have commented this – although using a slightly different word order and punctuation than the quotation in our article. It is, of course, by no means sure that he actually has done so.  --Lambiam 14:55, 23 January 2025 (UTC)
Here it is on Archive.org. It is Volume II Number 34, despite what Google claims. DuncanHill (talk) 18:04, 23 January 2025 (UTC)
On the other hand, the Churchill/Campbell-Bannerman version was still being quoted as "famous" as late as 1950, so the two variants co-existed for many years. --Antiquary (talk) 17:13, 23 January 2025 (UTC)

January 23

Marco Guidetti

Who was Marco Guidetti in relation to De Tomaso Pantera? This Turbo wrapper says "Marco Guidetti Pentera de Tomaso", but my search didn't yield any meaningful results for him, including books. My guess he could be this one, but not sure. Brandmeister 10:45, 23 January 2025 (UTC)

The creator(s) of these Turbo wrappers misspelled "Pantera", so they were not overly careful. Perhaps they misinterpreted the name of the author of the photograph as being the name of the car model.  --Lambiam 15:26, 23 January 2025 (UTC)
One possibility is that the particular vehicle shown was owned by a Marco Guidetti, possibly the movie designer and art director of that name who worked on Mad Max and other films: IMDb link (unreliable source) here. Relatedly, he may instead have been involved in designing the model's styling. {The poster formerly known as 87.81.230.195} 94.8.29.20 (talk) 15:57, 23 January 2025 (UTC)
A Marco Guidetti is credited to authoring and photographing Valentino Rossi : campione and a Marco Guidetti also authored JAGUAR . So it appears likely it is the name of the photographer as suggested by Lambiam when the gum was recently reintroduced, although this doesn't rule out the alternative possibilities that they are the car's owner or its designer as suggested by The poster formerly known as 87.81.230.195. Modocc (talk) 16:59, 23 January 2025 (UTC)
We also haven't yet ruled out the author/photographer/car designer(?) and the film designer being the same person, although the car originated arond 1970 and film guy's career seems to have started around 2003. Of course, 'Marco Guidetti' cannot be that uncommon a name in Italy. {The poster formerly known as 87.81.230.195} 94.8.29.20 (talk) 19:42, 23 January 2025 (UTC)

Australian Antarctic Territory population

What was the population of the Australian Antarctic Territory in the 2021 Australian census? I assumed this would easily be discoverable with a Google search, but I couldn't find this information from the ABS. Since the census counts people where they are on census night (and not where they live permanently), since Davis Station is inhabited year-round, and since the AAT is considered an external territory of Australia, the AAT should have been covered by the census (comparable to Christmas Island, the Cocos, etc) and should have had a non-zero population on census night. Nyttend (talk) 19:46, 23 January 2025 (UTC)

The external territories are listed here: . Quoting our article "Australia is an original signatory to the Antarctic Treaty of 1959. Under section 4, all territorial claims are held in abeyance." Which would appear to explain why it's not listed. Modocc (talk) 20:35, 23 January 2025 (UTC)
"Expeditioners to Australian bases in the Australian Antarctic Territory (and other locations) are included in the Census. Their 'place of enumeration' is an Offshore Statistical Area Level 1 (SA1) in Tasmania." -- Jack of Oz 20:45, 23 January 2025 (UTC)

Explain meme?

I understand what the person is trying to imply about Elon Musk, but I don't understand what the second picture is getting at. Is that Prince Harry and is that relevant? I'm pretty clueless so be patient. Thanks. 2601:644:8581:75B0:0:0:0:512B (talk) 23:22, 23 January 2025 (UTC)

Chris Hemsworth. The second image is a reverse angle showing the listener's response, and the meme is all about a good example of a facial expression expressing doubt. Originally the response by the listener was "is he though?". See . -- zzuuzz 00:12, 24 January 2025 (UTC)

January 24

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