Wikipedia:Reference desk/Archives/Humanities/2010 November 2

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November 2

carol o'connor

why did carol o'connor where a ring on the middle finger of each hand ? —Preceding unsigned comment added by 174.91.1.214 (talk) 01:15, 2 November 2010 (UTC)

This is apparently an often asked question on the net. Searching for phrases such as Carroll O'Connor Ring brings up numerous results. This source claims that he wore a Masonic ring on his middle finger because he thought that many Southern Sheriffs did so as well. This forum which is dedicated to All In The Family discusses it briefly and thinks it has something to do with the belief that the blood supply from the heart flows directly to that finger. Although these aren't the most reliable sources, I think they're about the best you'll get unless it's in a published biography about O'Connor. Was there one? I don't know. Dismas|^(talk) 01:22, 2 November 2010 (UTC)

Here's a better source... People magazine states that "For sentimental reasons, O'Connor wears his grandfather's diamond ring on the middle finger of his right hand." Dismas|^(talk) 01:28, 2 November 2010 (UTC)

Shooting yourself in the foot - US Senate seniority and pork

It occurred to me today, as I read the endless articles about American voter anger at the incumbents, that this - at least in the US Senate - might be somewhat akin to shooting yourself in the foot. Take the Nevada contest, for example. Reid has been in the Senate forever. The man has tremendous seniority on a variety of powerful committees, and innumerable people probably owe him favors. When it comes to the ability of bringing home the pork to Nevada, surely he can secure more than his novice challenger. Is there a study out there that comprehensively examines Congressional seniority and pork-barrel spending? I'd love to see how much impact (if any) electing a neophyte has on a state's take. The Masked Booby (talk) 01:55, 2 November 2010 (UTC)

It depends. A big part of the Tea Party Movement is the reduction in government spending, full stop. Pork barrel spending is still spending. The movement, and the right wing of the Republican party in general, seems to have as a platform reductions in government spending accross the board, even when that spending has local benefits. Over the past few years, some governors of Southern states have refused to accept federal money for a variety of things, from education spending to the recently passed stimulus bill, and as recently as this past week, the State of New Jersey effectively blocked the construction of a new Hudson River rail crossing by refusing to accept federal money to fund it. This is a fundemental ideology of this movement, and while it seems counterintuitive to the principle that people will take all of the money they can all the time, it is very clearly a real ideology which informs people. Basically, (whether you agree with it or not) the Tea Party Movement is acting outside of local financial interests with the express purpose of changing the way the federal government works. Ostensibly, they are still acting in financial self interest if they believe that the money they save in reduced taxation would compensate for the money they receive back from the federal government in the form of pork barrel spending. Even so, not every self-interest is always financial, and such movements may still have local self-interest at their core even if they are ultimately reducing their local share of the pork barrel. --Jayron32 02:04, 2 November 2010 (UTC)

e/c I can only guess that a similar situation exists in the US, but in Australia pork-barrelling tends to favour swinging seats rather than particular candidates. --jjron (talk) 02:07, 2 November 2010 (UTC)

And what references do you want from the reference desk? --Lgriot (talk) 13:22, 2 November 2010 (UTC)

Well, the OP's question was, has someone made a comprehensive study on the correlation between seniority and pork? And sure enough, there is plenty of information about it. Just a quick google search for seniority pork turns up a lot of stuff, such as this paper and this newspaper article. Senior congresspeople get more pork, simple as that.--Rallette (talk) 15:47, 2 November 2010 (UTC)

Stock Markets -- Quite Safe?

I'm not exactly a pro when it comes to economics but am I right in believing that stocks markets, in a way, are quite a safe investment when at in this way. If I have money (say 5000 $/£ or whatever) which I can afford to invest in stocks and I don't need to worry about getting the money back (i.e. I can leave it invested in whatever stocks for as long as I want) it would be harder to make a loss due to the fact that stock prices are always fluctuating and will likely eventually reach a price greater than or equal to the purchase price?

Obviously I realise that this is probably a simplistic view of things and I do understand that if you have no idea what you are doing and purchase shares that are doing VERY well at the time you're at a higher risk of the price dropping and then it would be less likely for the above to be true. Also there are probably other factors as well (e.g. even if I get back 100% of my money 5 years later that would in a way be a loss due to infaltion and the fact I could have made money off of interest by just putting it in a bank instead) but would you say my understanding of things are correct? I guess my understanding of things can be summed up as follows: the longer you can afford to keep your money invested in any particular stocks, the less likely you are to make a loss? --212.120.248.252 (talk) 04:48, 2 November 2010 (UTC)

Individual stock prices may never recover to the point of their purchase price (eg Enron), and if you bought stock in the wrong Japanse companies in 1990 or American companies in 2000, it may be a very long time to ever see your original purchase price again, if at all - see the graphs at Stock market bubble. Holding on to shares, assuming that in the long run, you'll always make a profit, is described in the Buy and hold strategy. Unilynx (talk) 05:21, 2 November 2010 (UTC)

In general what you're saying is held as conventional wisdom, but with about a million caveats. For example many experts recommend that to invest in the sharemarket you should have a long-term investment strategy in place of say a minimum of five to ten years; cash investments can produce more reliable (though not necessarily better) returns over the short-term. Typical recommendations also include 'not putting all your eggs in the one basket', i.e., diversification. Dollar cost averaging is also a technique used to try to dampen out short-term fluctuations in share prices. --jjron (talk) 06:08, 2 November 2010 (UTC)

Yes, probably, although there was a time in the 1920s or 30s when things seemed to have settled down in the stock market but then they suddenly fell, and it would take a very long time to get your nominal money back. My guess is that at the worst time in real terms you might be waiting decades, given the inflation of the 1940s. I recall reading something that was a detailed study of exactly this question, but I cannot remember where. You should first of all use the money to help pay off any loans or mortgages, and understand the Efficient markets hypothesis, but after that for money you are willing to lose, you can have fun with it. 92.29.115.229 (talk) 11:03, 2 November 2010 (UTC)

I would add that having a spread of shares is safer than investing in one or two companies. Individual companies can do a lot better or worse than the stock-market in general. -- Q Chris (talk) 11:37, 2 November 2010 (UTC)

Conventional wisdom is that stocks go up like an escalator and down like an elevator. Googlemeister (talk) 13:22, 2 November 2010 (UTC)

I can recommend the book The Intelligent Investor. More likely to impress is that Warren Buffett recommends it, calling it by far the best book on investing ever written. Comet Tuttle (talk) 16:49, 2 November 2010 (UTC)

... but Warren Buffet knew when to take his money out of the stock market! The UK FTSE 100 is still lower than it was eleven years ago! Dbfirs 19:47, 2 November 2010 (UTC)

What was Duong Van Minh's religion?

And would it belong in his article? Thanks. Imagine Reason (talk) 05:11, 2 November 2010 (UTC)

I haven't been able to find that information (it was not even in a couple of newspaper obituaries I read through, nor in some of our articles connected to him) but the presumption would be that he was a Catholic – given his privileged Francophile background, and also just that he managed to become a high ranking general under Diem: speaking of another general, our 1963 South Vietnamese coup article says, "Dinh converted to Catholicism as Diem trusted his co-religionists and promoted officers on loyalty and not competence" (and a couple of sources are cited for that statement). If I ever come across an actual source, though, I'll be sure to put it in the article! WikiDao ☯ (talk) 00:38, 3 November 2010 (UTC)

However, it's notable that Minh tried not to favor the catholics as blatantly as Diem did, and the coup that he led did help put a Buddhist in power. Buddy431 (talk) 13:43, 3 November 2010 (UTC)

The Vatican during World War II

I am curious as to why the Germans did not invade the Vatican after they had occupied Rome? How was the Pope able to maintain its neutral status?--Jeanne Boleyn (talk) 07:25, 2 November 2010 (UTC)

The occupation of Rome was late in the war, when there was more emphasis on survival and less on plundering. The Vatican had no military value, so there was nothing to gain from occupation. On the other hand, a large fraction of people in Germany and occupied territories were catholics (including, at least nominally, Hitler himself). So an obvious interference with the pope might have significant negative impact on morale, and would have given the allies propaganda ammunition for free. --Stephan Schulz (talk) 08:05, 2 November 2010 (UTC)

The reason I ask is that I watched a film on Italian TV last night which depicted the Pope convincing a German general who happened to be Catholic that it would be a sacrilege to occupy and plunder the Vatican. The reason I asked is that the treasure within could have been used to finance the Germans who needed materials to continue the war.--Jeanne Boleyn (talk) 08:11, 2 November 2010 (UTC)

It's beyond question that the Germans did plunder (see Nazi plunder), but as I understand it primarily for their own gain, eg Herman Goerring had a collection of art work stolen from all over Europe (also see Bruno Lohse). But, I doubt that any plunder could be used for financing as they had nobody to trade with, except possibly Sweden (see Sweden during World War II) which I imagine would be unwilling to accept such goods.87.102.115.141 (talk) 08:52, 2 November 2010 (UTC)

This book claims that the both Germany as a whole, as well as the war effort specifically, was mainly financed by plunder. --Saddhiyama (talk) 09:14, 2 November 2010 (UTC)

I just happen to find it bizarre that the two treasure troves of Europe; namely the Vatican and Switzerland were able to remain neutral and escape German occupation and plunder. I'm sure Goering would have loved to ransack the Holy See.--Jeanne Boleyn (talk) 10:30, 2 November 2010 (UTC)

You should take Italian movies on WWII with more than just a grain of salt. The Italian nation never went through de-nazification like Germany did and has no problems romanticizing their own involvement as an Axis power in WWII, conveniently forgetting their own crimes and painting pictures of the WWII Italians as "gentle people", utterly crime and blame free (incidentally, Japan has similar issues). Even nowadays neo-Fascism is not considered particularly problematical (again, unlike Germany, where neo-Nazism is seriously shunned by ordinary folks) and a neo-Fascist relative of the WWII butcher tyrant even has a sterling political career. That said, the Vatican was trying to be neutral during WWII and did not rush to condemn many of the atrocities of the Nazis or condemned them in lukewarm terms at best - and keeping in mind the old adage that "he who keeps quiet, approves" and peppering this with propaganda, the Germans could present the Vatican as friendly to their cause. The Vatican even helped Axis war criminals after the war so there might actually have been some truth in this. So in addition to the Germans fearing a backlash from religious troops, why attack someone you have labeled a friend? One that supplied what the propaganda machine could make out to pose as moral justification for what the Nazis were doing during the war? I think fear of sacrilege, while probably present, was a minor part of the reason the Vatican remained unoccupied. TomorrowTime (talk) 10:32, 2 November 2010 (UTC)

The very reason I asked the question is because I happen to live in Italy and I do know that Italy has been trying to whitewash its collaboration with Hitler as well as its own persecution of Jews (legge razziale), by producing films which depict all Italians as heroic partisans rescuing Jews and fighting German occupation. Shirer pointed out in Rise and Fall of the Third Reich that Mussolini wanted the spoils of war with the Germans doing most of the actual fighting. I think there is more to Vatican neutrality than will ever be admitted by the Holy See.--Jeanne Boleyn (talk) 10:42, 2 November 2010 (UTC)

Mit brennender Sorge was 1937. I know the German newspapers made no menion of it, but how was it possible for the Nazis to portray the Vatican as friendly to their cause after that? If it was just by lying wholesale, that wouldn't seem like an incentive to not invade, since you could just lie about that too. (I also think it's quite funny, given the main criticism of the Vatican regarding that time is that they didn't speak out enough publically, when they claim to have tried to remain neutral to an extent so that they could help more, that the main criticism of Mit brennender Sorge seems to be that they spoke out publically, which led to suppression and limited how much they could help :/ )86.166.42.171 (talk) 12:13, 2 November 2010 (UTC)

An Ode to Neutrality:
Oh, Hitler!
Why do you kill the Jews?
It is wrong
Yet, it fills my pews!
Oh, Hitler!
Why do you make war?
I'll turn a blind eye;
What was it about that Great Whore?

Seriously, though, the Catholic Church was officially neutral (see this), but did take some drastic steps to aid and abet Nazis after WW2. See this. This last link I found is educational, but severly biased, and claims so in the first paragraph, found here. schyler (talk) 13:45, 2 November 2010 (UTC)

Related: this editorial from Newsweek this year, in which the author argues in passing that the sovereignty of Vatican City is "bogus", a sweetheart deal between Mussolini and the Papacy that is the last remnant of the Axis Powers. (The author's outrage is that a US cardinal fled to the Vatican where he enjoys ostensible immunity from the child-rape scandals.) Comet Tuttle (talk) 16:47, 2 November 2010 (UTC)

Once you start calling another religion The Great Whore, I think it's clear you're just spouting Jehovah's Witness beliefs. A risky move, bringing up random religious slurs, when your own is so easy to mock: but I won't. In any case, Mit brennender Sorge is an early example of the Catholic Church making it's non-neutrality obvious, which led to all sorts of reprisals (as briefly mentioned in the article) and made it harder for many Catholics, particularly priests, to help those in need of help, and also led to many ending up in concentration camps. This offers some support for the claim that they did not make their non-neutrality obvious at other times, and went along with some stuff, to avoid unnecessary deaths and ensure they could continue to do good, since speaking out actually did lead to deaths and a limit on their ability to do good. In any case, the point is that after Palm Sunday 1937, every Catholic in Germany must surely have been aware that the Vatican opposed the actions and beliefs of the Nazis, which was the point of the encyclical. How could they pretend, to these German Catholics, that the Vatican was on friendly terms with the Nazi government? 86.166.42.171 (talk) 17:33, 2 November 2010 (UTC)

Well this is all very hypothetical, really; you have to assume that every Catholic knows and/or cares what the Vatican says, which is certainly not true today, at least. Maybe they identified as German first and Catholic second (or further down the line). Adam Bishop (talk) 20:55, 2 November 2010 (UTC)

Yes, so then why not invade the Vatican? That's the point: if German Catholcs didn't care, or already knew that the Church opposed the Nazis (as any German Catholic who had attended Mass on Palm Sunday 1937 - a major festival - or knew anyone who did would know, which was why the encyclical was written in German and snuck into all the churches in time for that Mass), why pretend to be friendly with the Vatican? And if you're not pretending to be friends, why not invade? 86.166.42.171 (talk) 22:07, 2 November 2010 (UTC)

Jeanne Boleyn, you might find some answers in these pages.

• Reichskonkordat
• Concordat Watch - Germany | Von Papen, papal chamberlain and Nazi negotiator
• Vatican’s Concordat With Hitler's Reich
• Pope Pius XII and the Holocaust

—Wavelength (talk) 01:02, 3 November 2010 (UTC)

Tibor Koeves wrote the 1941 book Satan in Top Hat: The Biography of Franz von Papen.

—Wavelength (talk) 01:55, 3 November 2010 (UTC)

There is a page in Italian at Il sistema nazista, where the second last section, "Gli stessi luterani, ...", says that the Vatican did not delay in accepting the terms of the Concordat, because it feared the persecution of Catholics and because it feared that the new regime would consider Protestantism a state religion.

—Wavelength (talk) 16:18, 3 November 2010 (UTC)

There is http://hubpages.com/hub/Why-Didnt-Pope-Pius-XII-Condemn-Hitler-and-the-Holocaust.

—Wavelength (talk) 16:35, 3 November 2010 (UTC)

The Concordat is mentioned briefly at http://www.vatican.va/holy_father/pius_xii/biography/documents/hf_p-xii_bio_20070302_biography_it.html.

—Wavelength (talk) 18:34, 3 November 2010 (UTC)

I am curious as to whether or not Pope John Paul II, during his sweeping wave of apologies on behalf of Chutch atrocities committed throughout the centuries, ever offered an aplogy for Pope Pius' indifference? This is not an attack on the Catholic religion or Church, but I am seeking to know why the Germans did not occupy the Vatican? The fact that Hitler was a former Catholic (and desired to enter the priesthood when a lad) does not convince me.--Jeanne Boleyn (talk) 18:44, 3 November 2010 (UTC)

I do not know about such an apology, but there might be a clue in this document.

http://www.catholicnewsagency.com/news/series_from_vatican_secret_archives_on_pius_xii_going_digital/

—Wavelength (talk) 19:20, 3 November 2010 (UTC)

I have just found Category:Pope Pius XII and the Holocaust, into which you might wish to delve. I have other ideas to pursue.

—Wavelength (talk) 19:25, 3 November 2010 (UTC)

Neutrality is discussed in paragraph 3 at http://ww2db.com/country/vatican_city.

—Wavelength (talk) 20:15, 3 November 2010 (UTC)

Thank you for all the links. They make very interesting reading.--Jeanne Boleyn (talk) 07:09, 4 November 2010 (UTC)

Utility of Stock markets

from the article I understand that the stock market gives industries access to cheap credit in the form of IPOs but does actual share trading add value to the economy? Do traders make more money from dividends or from buying cheap shares and selling them when they are expensive?

Where do I find out the ratio of money spent on shares over dividends paid out? Is that ratio a useful indicator of an economy's health?

Lastly are stocks the only method of raising money for ventures from the general public or have other schemes been tried? --Diwakark86 (talk) 15:03, 2 November 2010 (UTC)

Companies can also use some bond (finance) to raise money. Sorry no idea where to find ratios of profitability between share price increase and dividends. --Lgriot (talk) 15:58, 2 November 2010 (UTC)

Companies can also get a direct loan from a bank or other financial institution. Googlemeister (talk) 18:21, 2 November 2010 (UTC)

Banks usually only issue really short term loans to companies. Comet Tuttle (talk) 20:15, 2 November 2010 (UTC)

It really depends. Small businesses loans are fairly similar in many ways to personal loans. Googlemeister (talk) 21:05, 2 November 2010 (UTC)

. Banks want to loan small businesses money for weeks or months, not years. Comet Tuttle (talk) 20:35, 3 November 2010 (UTC)

Angel investors. Comet Tuttle (talk) 20:15, 2 November 2010 (UTC)

The ratio isn't a good indicator. Some companies choose to pay a dividend (which means the investor realises some of the benefit from the company doing well right now), others choose to pay down debt, develop new products and new markets, or to reinvest the money (all of which means the investor gets the benefit when they sell their stock). Which a company chooses to do depends on the prevailing tax regimes (in some places dividends are taxed differently to capital gains), the company's plans and its field of operation, and on what the stockholders (through the board) tell it to do. This article discusses whether or not Warren Buffett's Berkshire Hathaway will issue a dividend; as far as I know BH never has. But BH is a very (very) successful company that has made lots of people rich. -- Finlay McWalter ☻ Talk 22:02, 2 November 2010 (UTC)

The secondary market (NYSE, CBOE, AMEX, NASDAQ, et. al.) provide liquidity and price discovery. When an investor purchases stock in an IPO they price that stock based on several types of risk including: business, default, and liquidity. If the circumstances in which you can sell your stock and realize a capital gain are very limited, then the liquidity premium charged by investors will be much higher and stock price will be lower. By providing a way to easily trade stocks after their initial purchase, the secondary markets decrease this premium charged and allow the company to realize higher sale prices for their IPO.--74.196.68.191 (talk) 21:38, 8 November 2010 (UTC)

riddle

The people who did it, couldn't have done it.
The people who could have done it, didn't.
The people who didn't do it, should have.
What is it? —Preceding unsigned comment added by 92.230.235.170 (talk) 15:18, 2 November 2010 (UTC)

Lied. Googlemeister (talk) 16:29, 2 November 2010 (UTC)

Could also be "told the truth." -- kainaw™ 17:18, 2 November 2010 (UTC)

Is this a classical riddle from somewhere? I'm not familiar with the reference. Could someone enlighten me please? Buddy431 (talk) 19:02, 2 November 2010 (UTC)

The first statement is false by the Principle of contradiction. Therefore you, sir, are a knave. ;) WikiDao ☯ (talk) 19:25, 2 November 2010 (UTC)

Something to do with remembering, perhaps. 92.15.0.194 (talk) 13:54, 3 November 2010 (UTC)

Liberal Democratic Party (Japan)

Why is Japan's main conservative party called the Liberal Democratic Party? --J4\/4 <talk> 15:20, 2 November 2010 (UTC)

Why wouldn't it be? Names like "liberal" and "conservative" are completely subjective, and take on different contexts in different political systems. The main ends of the political spectrum tend to revolve around "rightist", which tends to be backwards looking, aiming to preserve established order and "leftist", which tends to be forwards looking, aiming to introduce change and advancement to the system. You should also see Classical liberalism, which was a "leftist" philosophy of the 19th century in some parts of the world (especially Europe), but is a clearly "rightist" philosophy of the 21st centure North American political world. --Jayron32 15:36, 2 November 2010 (UTC)

Yours is the standard answer, but it seems to me another angle is that the march of history in the West has been to the left for the last few centuries, so a party calling itself "Liberal" -- at some point in history -- might stay in the same place and later find itself to the right of the political center. --Sean 16:46, 2 November 2010 (UTC)

Which is pretty much exactly what I said, almost word for word, in the last sentance. --Jayron32 20:29, 2 November 2010 (UTC)

Using the international definitions of "liberal" and "democratic," pretty much all major political parties in the industrialized world nowadays are both liberal (supportive of personal freedom and free markets) and democratic (supportive of democracy). The usage of the word "liberal" to mean left of center is pretty much an American thing. -- Mwalcoff (talk) 22:41, 2 November 2010 (UTC)

Because it's a combined name of two parties. The LDP was formed in 1955 as a merger between two of Japan's political parties, the Liberal Party (自由党, Jiyutō, 1950–1955, led by Shigeru Yoshida) and the Japan Democratic Party (日本民主党, Nihon Minshutō, 1954–1955, led by Ichirō Hatoyama), both right-wing conservative parties, as a united front against the then popular Japan Socialist Party. See History of the Liberal Democratic Party (Japan). Oda Mari (talk) 06:25, 3 November 2010 (UTC)

U.S. Bill of Rights

I've heard arguments that the Bill of Rights is preventing the U.S. from becoming some Orwellian nightmare with people arrested for asking the wrong question, etc. Though it could happen, this doesn't seem very likely to me. For one thing, a would-be evil government could have just gotten rid of it by now. Second, it seems like there have got to be some countries that don't have a written document guaranteeing individual rights and yet are free countries. What are they? 68.104.175.130 (talk) 16:59, 2 November 2010 (UTC)

I don't think you are asking a question here until your last sentence. List of national constitutions has easy links to articles about all current (and some past) constitutions. If we're allowed to pick and choose individual rights, I'll volunteer that Great Britain does not have a constitutionally enshrined freedom of speech. (Correction: The UK incorporated the EU's guarantee of "freedom of expression", as mentioned in this article section. I am not certain whether this would be considered "constitutional". It still has many limitations on freedom of speech not found elsewhere.) Comet Tuttle (talk) 17:05, 2 November 2010 (UTC)

It's of note that in various times in American history, that the Bill of Rights did not protect individual freedom of expression very well. See, e.g., the Alien and Sedition Acts, the Sedition Act of 1918, the two Red Scares, etc. Whenever individual expression runs up against (real or imagined) security threats, it becomes significantly less protected. --Mr.98 (talk) 18:16, 2 November 2010 (UTC)

Read the article Inter arma enim silent leges. Many rights are de facto (if not de jure) suspended during a war. This also happened during the American civil war and World War II. It's the same story everywhere. Flamarande (talk) 18:35, 2 November 2010 (UTC)

To some degree, but it's worth noting that a lot of the periods in question did not take place during any declared war, and its pretty debatable whether or not we'd agree today with those suspensions (e.g. the use of the Sedition Act during WWI to prosecute anybody who implied that the war wasn't a great thing to go off and fight, or even cast historical aspersions against the British). --Mr.98 (talk) 19:35, 2 November 2010 (UTC)

We just had a question sort of relating to this: Wikipedia:Reference_desk/Archives/Humanities/2010_October_25#how_do_I_protect_my_utopia.27s_constittution_against_corrupt_judges. I think that people put a lot more stock in the U.S. constitution than they probably should. There are many countries without a written constitution that do a pretty good job protecting civil liberties (the U.K is a pretty good example). There are also lots of countries with written constitutions that nominally protect civil liberties, but where civil liberties are still not very well respected (Russia, maybe [1]). It takes a lot more than a written document to ensure that civil liberties are maintained. It takes a legal and political culture that respects civil liberties. It takes judges who are able to rule that something the government is doing is wrong, and it takes a legal culture that respects the rulings of said judges. Buddy431 (talk) 19:00, 2 November 2010 (UTC)

IP: a few points you're missing:

1. The design of the constitution is such that 'getting rid of' articles is extremely difficult. a would-be evil government would have to be incredibly powerful and entrenched to do (at minimum dominating 2/3 majorities of the both the house and the senate, and controlling the white house and the supreme court). It would (frankly) be easier to hold a coup and suspend/rewrite the constitution than amend it by conventional means.
2. Every country - even highly repressive regimes - claim that they are free countries protecting the rights of their citizens. In fact, most citizens of most countries - even highly repressive regimes - enjoy a comfortable degree of safety and freedom. The problem lies with those who are considered 'subversive' or otherwise dangerous to the state. The Bill of Rights is designed (primarily) to prevent a regime from stamping out opposition or undesirables through brute force. You might think that stamping out problematic elements through brute force is a good idea, if you're thinking about (say) terrorists. But in fact terrorist is just a label, and I don't think you'd want (say) the Republicans to declare that the Democratic party is a terrorist organization and stamp them out with brute force.
3. The only places that do not have something like a bill of rights but but maintain a high degree of liberal freedom are fringe regions that have set themselves up as havens for semi-legal activities: Monaco, the Cayman Islands, etc. These places protect the rights of people because people give them lots and lots (and lots) of money to protect those rights, usually from the legal authority of other states. Countries that do not rely on their reputation for discretion as the primary element of their GNP tend to make bright-line distinctions between 'good' citizens and 'bad' citizens, and many, many regimes view Bills of Rights as an impediment to protecting national interests against 'bad' citizens.

just so you know...--Ludwigs2 19:05, 2 November 2010 (UTC)

All countries, by definition, have a constitution (small c), in the sense that a constitution is the foundational principles that allow the government to govern. Even an absolute monarchy has a constitution, in the sense that the basic idea "What the monarch says, goes" is ultimately a "constitution" of sorts. Not all countries have a Constitution (big C), meaning a document that defines how the government works. There's nothing that says that a Constitution is required in order to have an orderly government. The U.K. has no Constitution (that is, single organizing document), but it certainly has a constitution, that is a set of guiding principles that organizes and defines the parameters of the government. Even in the U.S., there are constitutional principles (that is, fundemental parameters which define the role and scope of the government) which are not explicitly stated in the Constitution, but which are generally accepted to be, nonetheless, constitutional. Among these are judicial review and the right to privacy. There is unlikely to be any notable correspondance between writting down a set of rights of the citizen, and actual existance of those rights. There are likely as many countries which guarantee freedom of speech (or something similar) in writing, and then don't provide it for its citizens as there are countries which have no explicit guarantee, but where such freedom is widely availible. --Jayron32 20:38, 2 November 2010 (UTC)

"while I understand the point you're making, you're really stretching the hell out of the word. All societies are 'constituted' (meaning that they have an implicit set of pragmatic rules that define the society as a functional unit), but that's not the same as having a constitution. --Ludwigs2 01:47, 3 November 2010 (UTC)

As I've mentioned several times on this page, many authoritarian countries have had constitutions that theoretically were very liberal with broad protections for human rights that were completely ignored, while the U.K. has no written constitution and is a fairly free country. That is not to say the U.S. Bill of Rights means nothing -- the First Amendment, for example, leads to some very important differences compared with British society. But what's most important is a culture that values human rights. Without that, all the constitutional guarantees in the world mean nothing. The Bill of Rights is a product of the relative liberalism of American society (and the British society where it came from), not the cause of it. -- Mwalcoff (talk) 22:37, 2 November 2010 (UTC)

That's a naive view of complex American politics. The Bill of Rights, via court orders, has stopped many, many intrusions upon personal liberties in every state. Comet Tuttle (talk) 00:26, 3 November 2010 (UTC)

I'm definitely not saying the Bill of Rights makes no difference. I said above you can see its impact in the differences between U.S. and British laws, for example. However, the Bill of Rights and the subsequent interpretations of it are products of liberalism that were already extant in American society, not the causes of that liberalism. -- Mwalcoff (talk) 01:04, 3 November 2010 (UTC)

Indeed, as historian Gordon S. Wood recently wrote in Empire of Liberty, "The Bill of Rights remained judicially dormant until the twentieth century" (p. 72). Because of the high status of the Bill of Rights today, it's tempting to imagine that the courts have been using the Bill of Rights to protect individual liberties for more than 200 years, but it's just not so. A number of the original 13 states did not even bother to preserve or keep track of their official copy of the Bill of Rights. Americans of the 19th century valued their liberties as much as we do today, if not more so, but they didn't look to the Bill of Rights to protect those liberties in the way that Americans do today. —Kevin Myers 02:25, 3 November 2010 (UTC)

That's playing a little loose with "20th century" and your other dates... the Bill of Rights weren't largely applied to State actions until after the passage of the 14th Amendment in the late 1860s. Echoing the comments above, the people who apply the constitution are critical to how strongly it's enforced, however it's willfully naive to imply that the Bill of Rights was irrelevant until the 20th century: it functioned as it was intended--to restrain the federal government. At the end of the civil war the 14th Amendment represented a massive change in constitutional coverage. There's no anomaly there, and I don't think Wood ever suggests otherwise. Shadowjams (talk) 09:29, 4 November 2010 (UTC)

No, the Bill of Rights was not applied to the states in the late 1860s. The 14th Amendment was eviscerated soon after passage, starting with the Slaughter-House Cases in 1873. The incorporation of the Bill of Rights is a 20th century phenomenon. As to the misapprehension that the Bill of Rights has always meant what it means now, Eric Foner writes: "Today, when Americans are asked to define freedom, they instinctively turn to the Bill of Rights and especially the First Amendment, with its guarantees of freedom of speech, the press, and religion. Yet the Bill of Rights aroused little enthusiasm on ratification and for decades was all but ignored. Not until the twentieth century would it come to be revered as a quintessential expression of American freedom." (The story of American freedom, p. 25) —Kevin Myers 12:30, 4 November 2010 (UTC)

You misread what I wrote. It was passed in 1868. I didn't discuss its application to the states (incorporation). But it's missing the big picture to call the Bill of Rights dead letter until incorporation against the states. Jefferson used the Bill of Rights to protest the Alien and Sedition Acts. And although there aren't as many cases specifically dealing with the Bill of Rights prior to the Civil War as there are after, Barron v. Baltimore was considering the 5th Amendment in the 1830s. In fact, there are even examples of state supreme courts using the Bill of Rights prior to actual incorporation Nunn v. Georgia is a good example.

I can't argue with your central point, which is whether or not Americans considered it important until after incorporation, but I think it's hyperbole to call it judicially dormant. Shadowjams (talk) 21:35, 4 November 2010 (UTC)

Poppy day

Why does England use a poppy + oak leaf while Scotland uses a poppy alone? Kittybrewster ☎ 17:47, 2 November 2010 (UTC)

The poppies are made and the annual Poppy Appeal run by two different organisations in the two countries. In England The Royal British Legion runs the Appeal and its poppies are made at its factory in Richmond. In Scotland the Appeal has since 1921 been run by Earl Haig Fund Scotland (latterly rebranded as Poppyscotland) which states on its website:

"Why is there a different poppy in England, Wales and Northern Ireland? - Since Earl Haig first launched the Poppy Appeal in Scotland in 1921, we have always had our own unique design. The Scottish poppy features four petals, whereas the poppy produced by the Royal British Legion for their appeal in England, Wales and Northern Island has two petals and a green leaf."

As for the oak leaf, have you a reference stating that's what it is? I agree it does look a bit like an oak leaf, but I've always assumed that it's a stylised poppy leaf outline, which is in reality rather too fractal to model accurately with a simple paper cutout. If it is indeed an oak leaf, I too would be interested to know why. Anyone? 87.81.230.195 (talk) 19:01, 2 November 2010 (UTC)

No; somebody told me it is an oak leaf but I can't verify it. Kittybrewster ☎ 19:58, 2 November 2010 (UTC)

I've just bought my poppy for this year and all I can say is, if it's supposed to be an oak leaf it's a really poor effort. Compare your paper leaf with this[2]. I'm certain it's supposed to be a stylised poppy leaf. Alansplodge (talk) 21:59, 4 November 2010 (UTC)

Appeal

In Jimmy Wales appeal he says that wikipedia is the 5th most popular website in the world. He goes on to say that the four others have been built and maintained with billions of dollars in investment, huge corporate staff and relentless marketing. I'd like to know who are the top four websites, but I'd also like to know if Wikipedia is run with only individual donations or do big businesses also donate, and if so, why? As for marketing, surely Wikipedia must market themselves in some way, whether it's relentless or not. Jack forbes (talk) 20:41, 2 November 2010 (UTC)

Jimmy refers to the Alexa ranking system, where Wikipedia bounces around a bit between fifth and seventh place. The four busiest sites are Google, Facebook, Yahoo!, and Baidu. Wikipedia is primarily run from individual donations, though there have been substantial grants from bodies such as the Stanton Foundation, the Ford Foundation, the Alfred P. Sloan Foundation, etc. A small number of companies (such as Google) have also donated money, though there were no strings attached to the donations. As for marketing, the budget is really, really, REALLY low. The annual fundraiser still raises by far the largest proportion of funds for the Foundation. Other marketing efforts include the frequent talks given by Jimmy and a few other Foundation members to raise awareness and support, the annual Wikimania conference, collaborations between chapters and local GLAMs and...well...that's about it, really. GeeJo ^(t)⁄_(c) • 21:01, 2 November 2010 (UTC)

Thanks for your detailed answer, GeeJO. Much appreciated. Jack forbes (talk) 11:26, 4 November 2010 (UTC)

electric guitar canon!

I don't mean Canon in D or whatever - I mean a real CANON!! How do I find one on Youtube??? I want to see six or eight or - God forbid - TEN guitars, coming in one stanza after the other, in a giant wall of CANON SOUND. The first five seconds of this: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GTdt-Tyaa3M&feature=related has inspired me on this quest. How do I find it?? First five seconds is gold. 85.181.145.78 (talk) 21:38, 2 November 2010 (UTC)

p.s. It doesnt' matter what the canon is OF as long as it's not pachelbel!

Try looking through different practitioners of Neo-classical metal, especially Yngwie Malmsteen. --Jayron32 02:11, 3 November 2010 (UTC)

Model of the US government

Hey all! I'm doing a project for my History class concerning the elections now taking place. I need to make a graphic to accompany it, and I was wondering if this would be an accurate critical representation of the US government:

Party A is in power; problems exist -> Party A is voted out of power; Party B is voted into power for promises to fix the problems -> Party B spends 3/4 of its time in power repealing Party A's actions and 1/4 passing new actions, most of which are either trivial or will not come into effect until after or close to election time -> Problems still exist under Party B; people are dissatisfied -> Repeat (switching all parties) Thanks! —Preceding unsigned comment added by 24.92.78.167 (talk) 22:35, 2 November 2010 (UTC)

A bit cynical, and I think you overestimate how much time is spent repealing past laws. Most of the time is spent advancing petty causes and pork barrel politics GeeJo ^(t)⁄_(c) • 23:17, 2 November 2010 (UTC)

The question is whether that model applies historically or not. It sounds a bit too much like a post-2008 political analysis, rather than a general model. Here, for example, is a nice graphic that illustrates the back and forth of party control of the Presidency, the House, and the Senate over the entire history of the US. As you can see from it pretty clearly, while there is some back and forth, it is not a simple "one party, then the other party, then the other party again" model. Note, for example, Democratic dominance of Congress from 1955-1981, even though the Presidency switched on a fairly regular basis. --Mr.98 (talk) 23:20, 2 November 2010 (UTC)

The way that Congress works, it's pretty difficult to get things done. This is by design. This includes repealing past laws. For example, it seems that a great many Republicans have been swearing with a straight face that they are going to make "repeal Obamacare" a priority, should they come into power; but this is wishful thinking; these attempts will get filibustered in the Senate. Comet Tuttle (talk) 00:17, 3 November 2010 (UTC)

Actually, with a majority in the senate, Democrats won't need to filibuster it, they can just vote such attempts down. Googlemeister (talk) 14:59, 3 November 2010 (UTC)

Royal Saints

Why did Western European monarchies have less saints who were monarchs then Eastern European monarchies? A fair amount of Byzantine emperors and empresses were canonized by the Eastern Orthodox Church which may have been their autocratic power over the Church and State, but the ratio of Royal Saints in England compare to Hungary, both Catholic states, Hungary has far more; most of the Arpad dynasty were canonized while England had only Edward the Confessor. France, also, for being such an ancient monarchy had few saint kings.--Queen Elizabeth II's Little Spy (talk) 23:19, 2 November 2010 (UTC)

There are a couple of answers to this. Firstly, the Papacy was a temporal power in addition to a spiritual power. Hungary and other Catholic Eastern European nations weren't really all that big of a threat to either the Papacy itself, or any of the city-states of the Italian Peninsula, where the vast majority of Popes originated from. So it didn't "cost" anything to canonise nobles in such places, where canonising the King of France or England would grant their successors unnecessary additional power. Secondly, Eastern Europe was near-constantly engaged in military conflicts with Pagan and Muslim powers, which both gave monarchs opportunities to demonstrate their worth to the Church, and meant that securing the Catholicism of the populace was pretty important (letting the locals know that their kings were good Catholics gave them both a source of pride and good role-models for repelling the infidels.) Thirdly, a lot of Western kings simply weren't that pious. For every Edward the Confessor there was a Henry VIII, for every Saint Louis a Charles V. Fourthly, though a minor point, there weren't that many Popes from France or England (only Pope Adrian IV for the latter), so there was no particular predisposition for favouritism towards either country for most of the time. GeeJo ^(t)⁄_(c) • 23:54, 2 November 2010 (UTC)

And England doesn't only have Edward the Confessor. There's also Edward the Martyr, Alfred the Great (according to some Catholics), and Charles I of England (according to the Anglicans). If you allow monarchs before England was united, there's a long list in the sub-categories of Category:Anglo-Saxon saints. Warofdreams talk 02:07, 3 November 2010 (UTC)

The churches are also organized differently. Canonization in the Orthodox church is much more informal than the bureaucratic formality of the Roman church. Adam Bishop (talk) 02:08, 3 November 2010 (UTC)

Exactly. It took almost 500 years for the Church to canonise Joan of Arc!--Jeanne Boleyn (talk) 06:55, 3 November 2010 (UTC)

The OP mentions Hungary as an example, and that was historically a Roman Catholic country. --Saddhiyama (talk) 09:08, 3 November 2010 (UTC)

True, but Hungary is a special case; it was Christianized rather late, St. Stephen was (or so later kings believed) crowned by the Pope, and they were frequently putting down rebellions and waging war against pagans. This may be in contrast to Spain, where they were always fighting Muslims, but had always been Christian and had no particular special relationship with the Papacy. I don't know the exact process of canonization for the Hungarian kings, but since they were also heavily influenced by Byzantium, it could be that the kings were just considered saints by everyone, in the Orthodox sense, and this was later accepted by Rome. Adam Bishop (talk) 14:58, 3 November 2010 (UTC)