Wikipedia:Reference desk/Archives/Humanities/2012 March 3

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March 3

Members of Association of Arab Universities in English

Is there a list of members of Association of Arab Universities in English? — Preceding unsigned comment added by 65.95.105.158 (talk) 04:10, 3 March 2012 (UTC)

Click the flags from here. --SupernovaExplosion ^Talk 04:42, 3 March 2012 (UTC)

Arab Universities in La Francophonie

Which universities of the Arab World are members of La Francophonie meaning AUF? — Preceding unsigned comment added by 65.95.105.158 (talk) 04:13, 3 March 2012 (UTC)

How would an orphan get a birth certificate?

I tried googling this one and couldn't find an answer, so here it is: suppose a person doesn't know who their parents are or exactly when they were born. (perhaps they were dropped off on the steps of an orphanage or something) How would they go about getting a birth certificate? Would it even be possible? Would the orphanage/child care services arrange that for them in childhood or would they have to take care of it as an adult? What would be on it, seeing as they wouldn't be able to put down parents' names or a precise date of birth? I'm thinking primarily of the US (any state will do), but I'd be interested in hearing how other countries handle it as well. 24.247.162.139 (talk) 04:27, 3 March 2012 (UTC)

The process probably depends on the laws of your state. Start with your state health department and ask them that question, and see where the conversation goes. ←Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots→ 04:49, 3 March 2012 (UTC)

There are examples in my family history where two birth certificates have been issued to the same person, one shortly after birth and the other on adoption. (UK here) The original birth certificate and the indexes have been annotated with this information at a later date. As to what is on the original certificate, I presume the original issue was a short form giving only name and date of birth or date of finding in the case of a foundling. A quick search on "foundling birth certificates" has brought up some interesting forum posts. --TammyMoet (talk) 09:31, 3 March 2012 (UTC)

independence through referendum

Which nations have won their independence through referendum? — Preceding unsigned comment added by 65.95.105.158 (talk) 04:51, 3 March 2012 (UTC)

It could be argued that Australia was one, but it's complicated. Have a read of Federation of Australia. HiLo48 (talk) 04:58, 3 March 2012 (UTC)

Except nobody seriously argues that Federation brought with it independence in any sense. There is no universally accepted date for Australia's independence; the main contenders are 1920, when we were accepted as having a voice at the League of Nations separate from that of Britain; 1939, when the Statute of Westminster was adopted here; and 1986, when the Australia Act was passed. But 1901 is not one of the contenders. In 1901 we went from being 6 colonies to one colony with 6 internal divisions; we didn't call it that, but that's what it was. -- Jack of Oz ^{[your turn]} 06:37, 3 March 2012 (UTC)

I can't argue with that. You see, I said it was complicated. Many argue that the top left corner of the flag still suggests a bit of subservience. HiLo48 (talk) 07:35, 3 March 2012 (UTC)

It gets worse if you start to do political economy regarding ownership networks in the Australian economy; or, track the divergence of the "Australian settlement" from international capitalist standards over time (the Australian settlement—not that good in the first place—has largely been dismantled in favour of worlds' "best practice"). It is then arguable that Australia was more independent between the 1880s and Australia Act. :) Fifelfoo (talk) 23:02, 3 March 2012 (UTC)

South Sudan and East Timor.
Sleigh (talk) 05:55, 3 March 2012 (UTC)

Norway, Iceland, Guinea, Slovenia, Croatia, Macedonia, Georgia, Ukraine, Bosnia & Herzegovina, Eritrea, East Timor, Montenegro, South Sudan. Note that the definitions of 'independence' and 'referendum' vary a lot. See Independence referendum. - Cucumber Mike (talk) 07:39, 3 March 2012 (UTC)

Maybe Scotland in a few years. Astronaut (talk) 11:04, 3 March 2012 (UTC)

If I can recall correctly, most people in Scotland want to remain in the UK rather than cede. Quebec nearly did years ago. Narutolovehinata5 ^tccsdnew 11:08, 3 March 2012 (UTC)

There's never been a referendum on independance for Scotland but there's one on its way. There's a big fight about when to have it and what question to ask. See Scottish independence referendum, 2014. Alansplodge (talk) 11:39, 3 March 2012 (UTC)

Some places that have voted AGAINST independence or joining another country are Saarland (1935: 90% and 1955: 67%), Northern Ireland (1973: 98.9% but the opposition abstained), Gibraltar (1967: 99.19% and 2002: 99.51%) and the Falkland Islands. Alansplodge (talk) 11:57, 3 March 2012 (UTC)

Tokelau voted twice on becoming independent: in 2006 and 2007. In each case, more than 50% wanted independence, but a two-thirds majority was required. The second referendum fell short of that majority by just 16 votes.-gadfium 00:01, 4 March 2012 (UTC)

When have the Scots last fought for independence from England, as opposed to the Jacobite rising (Battle of Culloden) in 1745 in which they fought to rule a united Britain? Would it be the Wars of Scottish Independence ending in 1357? That article says Scotland "retained its status as an independent nation," but was united with England in 1707. If Scotland goes its own way, would Elizabeth II still rule "Great Britain" or the "United Kingdom" or just The Kingdom of England, Wales, and Northern Ireland?" (Apparently the channel islands are not really part of the UK). Will Wales and Northern Ireland also get referenda to vote on independence, if they so choose, or was Scotland a special case? Edison (talk) 04:49, 4 March 2012 (UTC)

I don't think Culloden was really about Scots fighting to rule Britain - there were Scots and English on both sides, as well as various other nationalities. There are lots of issues that would need to be cleared up in the event of a 'yes' vote in addition to the names and the monarchy (borders, marine resources, the military, EU membership, NATO membership, Scotland's constitution, etc.), and no firm decisions have been made yet, but I think it is generally expected that Scotland would still have Elizabeth as its head of state (on the same basis as the other Commonwealth Realms). There is very little support for Welsh independence (for example, a recent poll showed only 12% of people in Wales would want independence if Scotland became independent, and only 7% if it didn't), and even less for England and Northern Ireland. There has been some disquiet about England becoming even more dominant in UK politics, but it is a little difficult to imagine a solution to that - there are about 51 million people in England, 5 million in Scotland, 3 million in Wales and 2 million in Northern Ireland. 81.98.43.107 (talk) 14:36, 4 March 2012 (UTC)

So a future "Queen of England," with an independent Wales, Scotland and Northern Ireland, would rule 83.6% as many people. That would not seem such a big deal as one would have thought. Independence of the other nations would be even less of a big deal if they still were Commonwealth nations with Her Majesty as a figurehead. Edison (talk) 23:05, 4 March 2012 (UTC)

Scotland fought for independence from England in what's sometimes called the Third English Civil War (see Scotland in the Wars of the Three Kingdoms), including Oliver Cromwell's invasion of Scotland in 1650-51, with further minor uprisings in the following decade until the Restoration in 1660. The issues were complicated, about who should be on the throne of Scotland and England and who should control the Church of Scotland; Scotland basically became part of England in Cromwell's Commonwealth, and many Scots fought against that. --Colapeninsula (talk) 10:45, 5 March 2012 (UTC)

Let me make a comment on the OP's question. No one wins independence through a referendum. Only if the ruling nation agrees or is forced (militarily, by insurgency, or politically) into offering independence does a referendum possibly get held to clarify or formalize the residents' wishes on the matter. 203.214.66.250 (talk) 12:20, 5 March 2012 (UTC)

On getting what they didn't want

On a slightly off-topic note: I know of one case where a referendum returned a resounding NO vote to proposed self-government (not the same thing as independence, but related), but self-government was granted anyway (10 years later, and in the face of sustained opposition from some quarters who felt their express wishes, which they were invited, nay required, to register at the ballot box, were being ignored). I quote from Referendums in Australia:

In 1978, the Australian Capital Territory voted at a referendum on whether the ACT should be granted self-government. Voters were given the choice of becoming a self-governing territory, a local government or continuing with the Legislative Assembly being an advisory body to the Department of the Capital Territory. 63.75% voted to continue with the then current arrangement. Despite the outcome of the referendum, the Parliament of Australia passed the Australian Capital Territory (Self-Government) Act in 1988 and the ACT became a self-governing territory in 1989. -- Jack of Oz ^{[your turn]} 01:13, 4 March 2012 (UTC)

Wycliffe's "On Civil Dominion"

Where is there good information on John Wycliffe's "On Civil Dominion"?--Doug Coldwell ^talk 13:19, 3 March 2012 (UTC) withdraw--Doug Coldwell ^talk 22:26, 3 March 2012 (UTC)

Is it an AfD? --SupernovaExplosion ^Talk 08:09, 4 March 2012 (UTC)

No. It was just curiosity - of which I found.--Doug Coldwell ^talk 13:20, 4 March 2012 (UTC)

Koran burning

Why do some Muslims get so offended by it? It's not exactly as if Westerners would want to burn every Koran or as if they, the Muslims, would be committing a sin. XPPaul (talk) 13:55, 3 March 2012 (UTC)

The devout of many religions do not recognize a distinction between the laws and traditions of their religion as it applies to non-believers or believers. In other words, the laws of God are not for believers, they are for humanity. Furthermore, the burning of an object can be seen as disrespectful, regardless of who does it. Consider the vast controversy surrounding flag burning. Also, being offended is a personal thing; it is not valid to project your values onto the values of others and decide that it is illogical for them to be offended at an action because your values tell you that it should not be offensive. --Jayron32 14:09, 3 March 2012 (UTC)

It happens due to lack of freethought, and the cognitive bias of the people. In this particular case, the people are showing belief bias. As Jayron said, it is not only about religion, people also get offended by flag desecration. All these are illusory cultural constructs where individuals believe in the superiority of faith or an abstract national identity. In this case, the offended individuals are equating their own identities with a particular religion, and feel threatened when the scripture is burned. --SupernovaExplosion ^Talk 14:38, 3 March 2012 (UTC)

What's illusory about war? What's illusory about persecution? Religions, cultures, nationalism — these have real consequences in the world we live in today. These aren't abstract concepts that don't affect people. People are living and dying because of them. Whether you believe that at the bottom they are just figments of the human mind or not, figments of the human mind do have real-world effects. Nationalism as a concept has no scientific reality worth worrying about, but that doesn't make it real in the sense of affecting people's lives. Ditto religion, race, and whatever "abstract" concept you want to throw under the heading of "cognitive bias." It doesn't matter if there's no biological or physical basis to it if people are willing to kill you over it, or if there are political and economic ramifications to it. That makes it as real as it needs to be from a lived perspective. --Mr.98 (talk) 15:31, 3 March 2012 (UTC)

I have a different question. Why would someone burn a Koran? HiLo48 (talk) 15:17, 3 March 2012 (UTC)

In the most recent case, it was largely a bureaucratic mistake — burning a lot of "trash" which happened to also include Korans. It was a stupid, unnecessary activity that at best was an administrative oversight and at worst reflects a lack of understanding or respect of the local culture. --Mr.98 (talk) 15:27, 3 March 2012 (UTC)

(edit conflict) The official U.S. position on the recent controversy is that some copies of the Koran ended up on a refuse pile which contained all manner of trash.When the trash was burned per normal procedure, the Korans were burned too. 2012 Afghanistan Quran burning protests covers the background. Basically, some copies of the Koran had marginalia and other notes written in them which were "extremist" in nature, and so were disposed of in the trash. When the trash was later burned (as trash often is), the burning Koran copies were identified by local Afghan workers who were employed as custodians; not knowing why they were put in the trash (and not sure if it would have mattered if they had known) the Afghan workers reported what they found, and people got pissed.--Jayron32 15:32, 3 March 2012 (UTC)

It's surely largely a catalyst for larger issues relating to the fact that the United States has now been engaged in a war of occupation in that country for over a decade, ostensibly relating to the destruction of a small group of extremists, but now, thanks to mission creep, involved with trying to get rid of folks who actually probably represent the views of a large portion of the population there. In the process they've set brother against brother, variously destroyed and re-made local economies, created a volatile political situation, killed some 40,000 fighters and some 34,000 civilians (depending how you draw that line in this case), in response to attacks on the other side of the world which claimed some 3,000 lives. Put yourself in that headspace and see if it isn't a little bit infuriating to you.

The individual event — the Koran burning — is just one small additional bit of apparent disrespect to the region, the people, and their religion. Historically, these sorts of apparently small offenses by occupying powers have set off very intense waves of feeling. The best historical analogy I can think of are the tallow-greased cartridges of the Sepoy mutiny, an even more apt comparison when you consider that many of the protesters/fighters involved are those working for the native Afghan security forces the US is training (and the folks to whom the US will happily leave any resulting chaos after it pulls out). Writing it off as a nutty thing that fanatics worry about misses the real point here, and trivializes what is for these people a really quite delicate, life-and-death situation.

I write this not as some kind of anti-US rant, though it does have some of those characteristics. I write this because if you don't understand what people are thinking, you won't understand their actions. To understand what people are thinking, you have to understand it on their terms, not just write off their reasoning as some kind of idiocy or bias. --Mr.98 (talk) 15:27, 3 March 2012 (UTC)

Is this really any different from burning an Amercan flag? Done in the proper way it shows respect in the destruction of an item that is too worn to be of further use and done in an improper way it shows disrespect for the culture it is a symbol of. Hcobb (talk) 15:32, 3 March 2012 (UTC)

I don't think Muslims do get all offended by it. However, terrorists who had previously planned some attack love to find any pretext they can to blame the attack on Americans. If a fellow terrorist or terrorist supporter had burned a Koran, they wouldn't even have mentioned it. StuRat (talk) 21:57, 3 March 2012 (UTC)

"Muslims" is about as useful a construct as "Christians" in this context. Some Muslims will get offended, just like some Christians get offended by Piss Christ or The Last Temptation of Christ (film), and some American get offended by burning the flag. In either case, people are more likely to take offense if the act is seen (or portrayed) as an act of deliberate offense. --Stephan Schulz (talk) 22:45, 3 March 2012 (UTC)

You can imagine how Jewish people would feel if someone would burn a Torah. It's not apples to apples because a Torah scroll is hand-written while a Koran is just printed like any other book. But it's considered similarly sacred I suppose. Let's also keep in mind that people in traditionally authoritarian countries may not be able to understand that what individuals do in Western countries is not necessarily sanctioned by their governments, because in dictatorships nothing happens legally that's opposed by the state. So when a newspaper in a Western country prints an "insulting" Muhammad cartoon, angry people in Muslim countries may blame the entire society where it happened. -- Mwalcoff (talk) 02:29, 4 March 2012 (UTC)

Why were some Muslims offended by the burning? Perhaps because it seemed an "in your face " provocation. Burning someone's holy writings is like spitting on them or pissing on them. There were alternative actions, if said copies of the Koran had revolutionary slogans or other undesired writings added by prisoners (perhaps in itself an impious act). They could as easily have been packed in a crate and placed in one of those famous government warehouses (like the Arc of the Covenant in an Indiana Jones movie). This wise-ass action and provocation by unidentified soldiers has resulted in the deaths of 6 US soldiers in Afghanistan. Edison (talk) 04:33, 4 March 2012 (UTC)

"Wise-ass" makes it sound like an intentional insult, when they were just disposing of the Korans (which they had provided, BTW), in the same manner they dispose of other papers. As for the 6 deaths, I bet those attacks were already planned (although the timing might have changed) and the terrorists just used the Koran burning as a pretext. What I wonder about is the Afghan "allies" on the base who reported this info to the proper people to ensure that it could be used as propaganda. Those people should be kicked off the base, at the very least. StuRat (talk) 06:04, 4 March 2012 (UTC)

Because an occupying force that hides its deeds under a veil of secrecy is so much better at establishing trust and cooperation with the native population? --Stephan Schulz (talk) 08:57, 4 March 2012 (UTC)

Some things should be hidden. We're not talking about a massacre here. Should they film the crying children every time they smash down a door to look for the source of enemy fire, and then post this online to avoid a "veil of secrecy" ? The standard by which we should decide what to show and what to hide is if showing the event causes more serious problems than the event itself. StuRat (talk) 03:59, 5 March 2012 (UTC)

Which action would have worked out better? (1)Put the scribbled copies of the Koran in a box and ship them to a warehouse for storage (or for offsite shredding and disposal) or (2) Send them to a burn pit next to the base where local Muslims find them smoldering, and riots and killings of US troops ensue? You have ten seconds to decide. Edison (talk) 23:01, 4 March 2012 (UTC)

Obviously the warehouse is the better choice, but the fact remains that such a minor faux pas shouldn't cause people to be murdered, and wouldn't, unless a terrorist organization is then given that info as an excuse to justify their next attack. StuRat (talk) 03:54, 5 March 2012 (UTC)

Of relevance here is Quran#Treatment and disposal of the book. Surely writing additional words (eg. extremist slogans) in a copy of the Koran is "defiling" it. And "...worn-out, torn, or errant Qurans are ... burned...", though that is referenced by an article from the Slate, an online US publication owned by The Washington Post. Astronaut (talk) 10:35, 4 March 2012 (UTC)

In cases like this, it's helpful to read the ref which says:

Burning isn’t a popular choice, because fire is associated with the devil as well as the early rival religion Zoroastrianism, but some scholars find it acceptable. Saudi religious authorities place burning on par with burial, as long as it’s done ritually on mosque property. They point out that Uthman ibn Affan, a friend to the prophet and early caliph, sanctioned the burning of nonconforming Qurans after compiling the official version. Other scholars view burning as a last resort, for example, in an emergency situation to prevent the book from being defiled. After burning, the ashes should be buried or scattered over water.

So burning may be okay in some circumstances and by some people. However burning it along with trash by people not aware of what they're burning is unlikely to be.

Nil Einne (talk) 03:39, 6 March 2012 (UTC)

The attitude, demeanor and intent of the burners are relevant. If the local American Legion post in the US has a respectful burning of worn out American flags, that is not to be conflated with someone burning American flags in a display of disrespect. A similar consideration might be given Korans or other symbols venerated by some group. Is it a wise decision to desecrate a symbol venerated by some group, when even a child could foresee that it might lead to the killings of persons from the dis-respecting group. Was it really worth it? Could it have been handled better? Edison (talk) 02:42, 6 March 2012 (UTC)

I don't think the word "desecrate" applies here, as that implies intent. They were just disposing of the Korans as they would with any other document. StuRat (talk) 03:46, 6 March 2012 (UTC)

Which is actually the problem. Some devout muslims will not even touch a Koran without ritually washing their hands first, lest they make the book unclean. It should be clear to even the lowest-ranking clerk stationed in Afghanistan that you don't just throw a Koran in the garbage. — The Hand That Feeds You:^Bite 21:01, 6 March 2012 (UTC)

Burning doesn't seem nearly as disrespectful as tossing them in the garbage. Then there's also the question of the degree to which non-Muslims should be required to follow Muslim rules, while in Muslim nations. Should non-Muslims be forbidden to eat pork ? Should non-Muslim women be subject to Sharia law ? StuRat (talk) 23:20, 6 March 2012 (UTC)

Burning isn't necessarily the issue. It's more A) throwing them in the garbage is obviously disrespectful, and B) U.S. representatives were involved, which just feeds into the "Americans are trying to destroy our culture!" hysteria that drums up support for Al Qaeda. The officials involved should have asked a local Muslim leader to oversee their disposal. It would have shown more respect, and be far less likely to cause the uproar we've seen.

As for what rules to follow, it's a matter of respect and courtesy. Only the more radical and conservative will demand strangers adhere to every tenet of their religious beliefs. But, it pays to think through your actions when in a different culture. Eating a pork BBQ sandwich isn't necessarily offensive, but eating it in front of a devout Muslim may be. Eating it in front a devout Muslim who is fasting during Ramadan is just being a WP:DICK. Eating it inside a mosque is asking for a riot. — The Hand That Feeds You:^Bite 19:26, 10 March 2012 (UTC)

Attacking communism in China

I've always had to ask this. China's been communist since 1920, around the time of the Soviets. Then it soon spread to Vietnam and the Americans went to war with them. Then they went into a Cold War with the USSR, and almost every country despised communism. But why have the nations of the world always been so "kind" to China? From what I read they were no wars trying to stop communism there. Is it because they think China will stop giving them cheap products? 64.229.204.143 (talk) 15:51, 3 March 2012 (UTC)

Perhaps those other "wars" weren't really against communism. HiLo48 (talk) 15:58, 3 March 2012 (UTC)

China only became fully communist in 1949. In 1950, after the start of the Korean War, the United States began to provide active support for the Nationalist Chinese, to prevent the fall of Taiwan. Mikenorton (talk) 16:08, 3 March 2012 (UTC)

A short answer is that during a critical period the anti-Japanese struggle was supposedly prioritized above Chinese internecine struggles (see the famous Xi'an Incident). AnonMoos (talk) 16:15, 3 March 2012 (UTC)

There have been quite a few historical factors that have brought the US and China together. As well as those listed above, a big one was the Sino-Soviet split, a massive falling out among the Communist nations. China and the Soviet Union became fairly bitter enemies, even fighting proxy wars across Africa and Asia. China and America had a common foe in the USSR, and they became distantly friendly to each other (the so-called "Rapprochement", famous for giving us Ping Pong Diplomacy and the phrase "Only Nixon could go to China"), for both trade and military reasons (at the time, selling American products to China was a bigger issue than selling Chinese products to America). As long as the Soviet Union - which was far less willing to trade and far better armed than China - was a risk, the US wouldn't want to waste energy going to war with one of the Soviets' most potent enemies. Smurrayinchester 17:37, 3 March 2012 (UTC)

I think it's the difference between Maoist and Stalinist foreign policy. The foreign policy pursued by Russia after World War 2 was to aggressively convert countries to Communism, and where countries wanted to leave the Communist bloc, they would invade: see Hungary, Czechoslovakia, Yugoslavia. China, on the other hand, was not aggressive and did not wish to convert other countries to Communism - except where China regarded those countries as having been part of a historical greater China, such as Tibet and Mongolia. --TammyMoet (talk) 17:42, 3 March 2012 (UTC) We have an article: Foreign relations of the Soviet Union which bears this assessment out. --TammyMoet (talk) 17:47, 3 March 2012 (UTC)

China is run by an organisation that calls itself a 'Communist Party', it is however not 'communist' by any objective assessment. AndyTheGrump (talk) 17:45, 3 March 2012 (UTC)

Dear Tammy, last time I checked the state of the research, the Soviet Union did not invade Yugoslavia after the split; though it did conduct a number of exercises in relation to planning an invasion. Fifelfoo (talk) 22:44, 3 March 2012 (UTC)

Sounds like they got off lightly then... --TammyMoet (talk) 10:56, 4 March 2012 (UTC)

Soviet military planning in this period emphasised the almost unacceptably high cost of opposed military operations in friendly countries. 1953 in Berlin was seen as costly. The Red Army had been fighting Polish and Ukranian partisans from 1939/1941 through to the late 1940s, and these campaigns were seen as costly. The plans against Yugoslavia were to a significant extent permanently deferred because of the Korean War, and had probably been constructed as exercises to prove that an invasion of Yugoslavia would have been unacceptably costly, even using Warsaw Pact allies as the first echelon. When Władysław Gomułka surrounded Soviet forces with Polish troops in 1956, this lead to a negotiated withdrawal of the offending Soviet forces and the cementing of Gomułka's relative freedom of action. Hungary 1956 was seen, by military experts on the political committee of the central committee, to be significantly dangerous even without the Hungarian army intervening on the side of the revolutionary movement. In the event of the invasion, the cost of the operations in Hungary to the Soviet Union were significant, appreciable, and of concern. Yugoslavia got off lightly in the split, but it is questionable if the Soviet Union would have had the willingness to pay the price of invasion in the first place. Fifelfoo (talk) 01:23, 5 March 2012 (UTC)

If you're asking why the US didn't try to invade China to turn them from being Communist, the answer is that by the 1950s, it became clear to the US that fighting China directly and winning would probably require nuclear weapons or a war big enough to draw in the USSR (who had their own nuclear weapons). There was some enthusiasm for invading China during the Korean War but most of the policy folks saw that it would be a colossally bigger mess than the Korean War, which itself was already a colossal mess. By 1964, China had its own nuclear weapons within range of key US interests in the area, and was therefore pretty off-limits for direct confrontation. By the 1970s, the US realized that once the Vietnam mess was taken care off, that it had more to gain from being a pal of China that it could from being a mortal enemy of China. These days, China is a thoroughly modern country with a thoroughly modern military (complete with second-strike nuclear weapons capability) — attacking it would be idiotic.

Realpolitik dictates that you don't attack the really powerful countries; you attack the weak ones. China is a powerful country. It wasn't always one in the past, and there were times when the US kicked it around a bit (e.g. with nuclear blackmail during the second Taiwan Strait crisis), but the Chinese learned from that (and made their own nuclear bombs). Incidentally, the Chinese and the Vietnamese were not pals, and got into a bitter war immediately after the US got out of there. Similarly the Chinese and the USSR had a split in 1960 and became bitter enemies. Just because these countries are lumped in as "Communist" did not mean they were cooperating with each other. --Mr.98 (talk) 18:17, 3 March 2012 (UTC)

In the period after WW2 and during the first phase of the Cold War, China was:

• ...very poor and underdeveloped. By the end of WW2 the Soviet Union was a modern industrial superpower, where China was still an overwhelmingly agrarian society.
• ...riven with internal concerns and particularly its deeply broken attempts to modernise. Whereas Soviet collectivisation had been disastrous, Chinese attempts at modernisation were catastrophes of biblical proportion.
• ...far from most strategic US interests (bar Japan, perhaps) and, as noted above, historically uninterested in large-scale military expansion. Stalin's Red Army, by contrast, had shown skill and dedication at invading huge areas of land, and the US had every reason to be concerned that, unchecked, this wave could continue over western Europe, altering the world power balance very materially (and ditto for a move down into Persia and the Gulf). Even if China had exhibited more expansionist tendencies, the neighbourhood wasn't really all that worthwhile a target.
• ...fairly uninterested in expanding its economic, political, or ideological influence overseas, fostering communist revolutions or insurgencies in far away places (where the Soviets were eager to help fellow travellers in the Americas), or engaging in wholesale espionage in western countries or neutral territories.

All in all, China posed little risk to the US, and showed little interest the US or its affairs. It's instructive to consider which, and to what extent, these factors still hold today, as that may hint at where future conflicts may arise. Can I tangentially put in a good word for Olaf Stapledon's 1930 novel Last and First Men, the opening part of which seems more eerily prescient than ever. -- Finlay McWalterჷTalk 22:30, 3 March 2012 (UTC)

Interestingly, in light of Finlay's aptly put analysis of the situation, the US elite fractured on China and proceeded to purge itself. Obviously, at the time, a faction of the US elite believed that China was an interest and/or that they had the capacity to maintain China as an element of their sphere of influence. "Who lost China?" as if it was theirs to have. Fifelfoo (talk) 22:44, 3 March 2012 (UTC)

Military flank

I am aware what a flank is. But I would like to know: in a text I am reading, it makes mention of the left flank, and the right flank (Battle of Tannenberg, Francois was supposed to attack Samsonov's left flank). But I'm not sure which side left is: is it left from the perspective of one facing the army formation, or is it left from the perspective of someone facing the same direction as the army? Brambleclawx 21:33, 3 March 2012 (UTC)

Usually, the perspective of that army - so Samsonov's left flank would be the left as seen from the Russian side, and the right as seen from the German side. Shimgray | talk | 21:47, 3 March 2012 (UTC)

Samsonov's left is just that: the left flank of Samsonov's force as he himself would see it. Looking at Battle of Tannenberg (1914)#The main battle (26 August to 30 August) it has the German I Corps under François attacking the Russian I Corps - the map shows this movement a few miles south of Tannenberg itself. This, from Samsonov's perspective, as he faces west, is his left flank. His right flank is way to the north, comprising VI Corps. -- Finlay McWalterჷTalk 21:51, 3 March 2012 (UTC)

Thank you Brambleclawx 22:12, 3 March 2012 (UTC)

Fatty Arbuckle and arrests

Hi all, I recently found this mugshot of Fatty Arbuckle, which would be a good addition to the article; however, it would only definitely be in the public domain if it is from the 1921 arrest and not a subsequent one. I was wondering how many times Arbuckle was arrested. His article only says once, in 1921, but it could have been omitted. Crisco 1492 (talk) 23:41, 3 March 2012 (UTC)

I used TinEye which found around 15 copies of this photo around its database, and only this link made any effort at describing the photo; but an uncited caption at suicidegirls.com is probably not a WP:RELIABLE source. Comet Tuttle (talk) 01:56, 4 March 2012 (UTC)

This book labels it as being taken shortly after his arrest in connection with the death of Virginia Rappe, so it's probably 1921 (he was arrested ca. September 16). --Mr.98 (talk) 03:22, 4 March 2012 (UTC)

• Shame the author didn't note a source. Crisco 1492 (talk) 04:29, 4 March 2012 (UTC)