Wikipedia:Reference desk/Archives/Humanities/2012 September 18

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September 18

Large modern conflict zones

Which areas of the world (as in two countries or more) had a lot of wars between each other (rather than against non-state entities) after World War II? Besides the obvious U.S. and U.S.S.R. Cold War, I'm thinking of the Arab-Israeli conflict, which had wars in 1948-1949, 1967, and 1973, the India-Pakistan conflict (especially in regards to Kashmir), where there were wars in 1948, 1965, 1971, and 1999, and Iraq, which had a war with Iran in the 1980s, a war with the U.S. and other countries in 1990-1991, and another war with the U.S. (before Saddam's govt. got overthrown) in 2003. Are there any conflicts and countries that I'm missing? Thank you. Futurist110 (talk) 00:49, 18 September 2012 (UTC)

The former Yugoslavia had a series of wars after it broke up. StuRat (talk) 01:00, 18 September 2012 (UTC)

The former Yugoslavia only had large-scale conflicts for about 10 years or so. I'm talking about a timeframe of at least 20 (but hopefully 30 or more) years. Futurist110 (talk) 02:55, 18 September 2012 (UTC)

Southeast Asia (Vietnam, Cambodia, etc.) was a mess for quite a while. (Parts of this conflict were related to the Cold War, but not all.) StuRat (talk) 01:02, 18 September 2012 (UTC)

Africa has had (and continues to have) several conflicts involving multiple nations. We have Angola, Rwanda/Burundi, Ethiopia/Eritrea, etc. StuRat (talk) 01:05, 18 September 2012 (UTC)

(edit conflict) The Koreas have technically only had one war between each other, but officially it is still ongoing, though that may be included in your "Cold War" umbrella. China and Vietnam had a war in 1979 and went on to have some interesting quasi-wars during the 1980s. Chechnya may or may not be a state, depending on your point of view, and Russia has fought two wars over it. Libya has also fought several wars with Egypt and a few other nations of the Maghreb, though I'm afraid I'm much too lazy to look up all those right now. Evanh2008 ^{(talk|contribs)} 01:17, 18 September 2012 (UTC)

The Koreas are technically still at war with each other, but they only fought one real, actual war with each other in the early 1950s and that was it, in contrast to Israel/the Arab world, India/Pakistan, and Iraq/its neighbors and/or the United States. Futurist110 (talk) 02:57, 18 September 2012 (UTC)

The North-South conflict of Sudan isn't over CubanEkoMember (talk) 02:27, 18 September 2012 (UTC)

True. Futurist110 (talk) 02:59, 18 September 2012 (UTC)

Also, the war in Afghanistan started in 1979 and continues until today. However, unlike the other countries (which had either the same leadership throughout all these wars (Saddam) or democratic governments), the Afghan govt. in 1979 and the Afghan govt. in 2011 are not the same by any means. Futurist110 (talk) 02:59, 18 September 2012 (UTC)

The war in Afghanistan that started in 1979 is not the same war that continues to this day, except in the most vague sense (which probably then would say that Afghanistan has been at war for nearly its entire modern history). 1979 was the Soviet invasion of Afghanistan after a period of relative stability and peace. When the Soviets withdrew, the country remained in a state of civil war for some years. The Taliban eventually more or less "won" and again was a period of relative stability and peace. Then the US invaded in 2003, producing the current conditions of a US-supported Northern Alliance government posed against a Taliban. I wouldn't say these are all the same wars, even though Afghanistan has been more or less a war zone for quite a lot of this time (and again, technically, it has been a war zone for much longer than that, by that definition). --Mr.98 (talk) 13:18, 18 September 2012 (UTC)

The U.S. invaded Afghanistan in 2001, not 2003. Also, there was still a war in Afghanistan between 1996 and 2001, but it was generally in the northeastern corner of Afghanistan (where the Northern Alliance still controlled some territory). Other than that, I agree with your point and that's pretty much the point that I was trying to make. Futurist110 (talk) 01:23, 19 September 2012 (UTC)

Crato descendants

What happen to the senior line of Manuel, Prince Hereditary of Portugal's descendants. I got down to his granddaughter Elisabeth Maria or Isabel Maria who married a Baron Adriaan von Gent or Baron Adrian van Ghent, but the genealogy after that are fragmentary [1] [2]. Did Isabel Maria son's have surviving issues? Did this family continue the claim to the Portuguese throne after de:Manuel António von Portugal?--The Emperor's New Spy (talk) 04:19, 18 September 2012 (UTC)

Countess Emilia of Nassau list many children which lived to the age of maturity. That would give you several names to track down. --Jayron32 05:32, 18 September 2012 (UTC)

The article at portuguese Wikipedia also has a second wife listed, but there are a lot of redlinks there. German Wikipedia has information on his son Manuel Antonio, [3] presumably that's where you got the information on Adriaan Von Gent. German Wikipedia also has info on another decendent [4]. I checked Dutch Wikipedia, but it has pretty much the same articles as German Wikipedia does. --Jayron32 05:39, 18 September 2012 (UTC)

The online genealogy are pretty detailed on those children, but I am actually specifically asking about Manuel's direct heir general which would be his granddaughter Isabel Maria's descendants, the Ghent/Gent family. GeneAll.net list four sons and five daughters but give no detail about the sons and Geneagraphie.com name only two daughters. --The Emperor's New Spy (talk) 05:45, 18 September 2012 (UTC)

I'm getting lots of "Hompesches" following the links from Geneall, Wikipedia has only one article on a Hompesche, Ferdinand von Hompesch zu Bolheim. The Hompesche line runs out here, where it seems to pass through a daughter to the Freiherrs (barons) of Riedesel Freiherr zu Eisenbach, Wikipedia has an article on a Volprecht Riedesel Freiherr zu Eisenbach. None of this is firm, but following the links from your website, this is as far as I can get. --Jayron32 06:02, 18 September 2012 (UTC)

Also found Friedrich Adolf Riedesel, who was also a Baron of Eisenbach. --Jayron32 06:06, 18 September 2012 (UTC)

Not much help here but I'll mention it anyway: [5] —Tamfang (talk) 21:49, 18 September 2012 (UTC)

This source lists three daughters, two of whom had children (these are the two daughters listed at Geneagraphie). Apparently only Egerie-Adriana-Sibilla had grandchildren. --Cam (talk) 22:44, 18 September 2012 (UTC)

Source for use of "race" in U.S. ouside Census

Hello, I need a good source for the fact that the term "race" (when refering to humans, not dogs) is still widespread in the U.S. outside the U.S. Census. I'm talking of official documents, for example forms used in universities or similar institutions, where options for "race" might include "Caucasian", "African American", "Asian", "Hispanic", etc. (For those of you who speak German, the background of the question is here). --Neitram (talk) 07:43, 18 September 2012 (UTC)

It is. Try the television or newspaper. It seems to be quite relevant. Oh, and if you want "official" documents Congress and the Supreme Court have not exactly been silent about those terms. Shadowjams (talk) 11:03, 18 September 2012 (UTC)

In terms of institutions, one place where I have been asked many times what my "race" is are in hiring documents — it has to do with Equal opportunity employment reporting. (They are not allowed to use the data in making hires, and indeed, in many places that data is acquired by a totally different part of the organization making the hiring and is not shared with those who make hiring decisions.) Another unusual place to look are in adoption procedures — when adopting (and presumably when listing a child for adoption), you get to make race preferences, and indeed different fees are associated with different races (white babies cost more, basically — presumably because they are lower in supply and higher in demand). I thought this was somewhat amazing when I first heard of it, but it came from a reliable source (a very good friend of mine who recently adopted a child). --Mr.98 (talk) 13:13, 18 September 2012 (UTC)

When applying for university, they'll typically have you check a box similar to that found of census forms (i.e. both a "are you Hispanic" question, and a "what race do you identify with" question. Buddy431 (talk) 16:54, 18 September 2012 (UTC)

Many US states have race on the driver license. Oddly, my North Carolina license application had a place for race, and the word "race" appeared on the license itself at the far right of the license, but my actual race was not given because there was no room at the right edge. Go figure. Duoduoduo (talk) 22:02, 18 September 2012 (UTC)

The article Ward Connerly says:

In 2003, Connerly helped place Proposition 54 on the California ballot, which would prohibit the government from classifying any person by race, ethnicity, color, or national origin, with some exceptions, such as for medical research. Critics were concerned that such a measure would make it difficult to track housing discrimination and racial profiling activities. Editorials in newspapers such as the San Francisco Chronicle and Los Angeles Times criticized the measure, saying that the lack of such information would hamper legitimate medical and scientific purposes.[12] The voters did not pass the measure.

This implies that such governmental racial classification is widespread. Duoduoduo (talk) 22:11, 18 September 2012 (UTC)

Right, as part of the aforementioned equal opportunity stuff. Most of the above are about tracking trends based on census categories so that you can show whether the fact that your employees diverge from the general population is a matter of who applies or a matter of systematic discrimination. The driver's license though is probably a matter of forensic identification: law enforcement (ideally) only uses "race" as a code for "here's how you can quickly know if this is plausibly the right guy or not." So when the law says that the suspect is an African-American, or a Caucasian, or whatever, he's not saying, we tracked his ancestry and have made a pedigree and a DNA analysis and so on, he's saying, look, you know more or less what I mean, in terms of what such people generally look like. (This practice has been criticized by some as highly problematic, promoted by others as pragmatic.) Separate from this are the needs of pollsters and survey makers (who may or may not be affiliated with the government) who just want to make sure that when they do a survey, they don't take for granted they are getting a representative slice of the population (something that comparison with census numbers, again, can be useful for). So there are lots of different usages going on here, not just one, and all of this is somewhat parallel and separate from generic social notions about race (which don't map cleanly onto the US Census categories). --Mr.98 (talk) 14:14, 19 September 2012 (UTC)

It happens all the time. Try filling out a survey online. 69.62.243.48 (talk) 01:42, 19 September 2012 (UTC)

Thank you all for your good responses. Unfortunately my discussion mate Klaus Frisch does not accept any of these as a source. I decided to give up aguing with him. --Neitram (talk) 07:37, 20 September 2012 (UTC)

How is propositional, formal, mathematical, etc., different to philosophical logic?

How is propositional, formal, mathematical, etc., different to philosophical logic. It is certainly different and if that is show it difference in form of arguments and how it is to be criticized if wrong. — Preceding unsigned comment added by BT-7A (talk • contribs) 11:43, 18 September 2012 (UTC)

The replies to your previous questions suggest that nobody here is able and willing to enter into the kinds of discussion you appear to want. If your question is not answered by Logic or related articles, then it may be that Wikipedia is not going to be able to help you. --ColinFine (talk) 12:12, 18 September 2012 (UTC)

I have a mathematics degree, and studied formal logic at university. Both my brothers are university academics in other fields, with a firm grounding in philosophy, including philosophical logic of a non-mathematical character. And we find the domains intersect frequently. Propositional logic is a specific formalism, but the underlying principles of logic are not exclusive to mathematics. Conversely, philosophical logic can be described in mathematical terms. Your premise, therefore, is wrong. You have supplied a conclusion and demanded premises and evidence to demonstrate it. This shows me that you are unfamiliar with logic as practised by mathematicians, philosophers, scientists, or the man on the Clapham Omnibus. If you are unwilling to learn what is offered, you will never appreciate why your demands go unanswered. AlexTiefling (talk) 12:23, 18 September 2012 (UTC)

"The AF PX Spring Sale! Buy One, Get One Hundred Free! All-You-Can-Eat Sushi Bar!!!!! While Supplies Last!"

• Battle of Midway

Since the early spring of 1942, the US had been decoding messages stating that there would soon be an operation at objective "AF." Commander Joseph J. Rochefort and his team at Station Hypo were able to confirm Midway as the target of the impending Japanese strike by having the base at Midway send a false message stating that its water distillation plant had been damaged and that the base needed fresh water. The Japanese intercepted this and soon started sending messages that "AF was short on water."

Why did the Japanese encode an intercepted plain text message? I mean if you have intercepted a plain text message, the original sender already have known that this message is out there for everyone to hear. There is no need to keep it a secret. Re-encode this message only provides your enemy highly valuable study material.

Did the Japanese know how to use secret code properly? Did they have guidelines regarding the use of their cipher? -- Toytoy (talk) 12:09, 18 September 2012 (UTC)

It doesn't say they encoded a plain text message. It says that they intercepted the message, and they then no doubt passed this "useful intelligence" among themselves, in their usual manner.

Is there some particular significance to the bizarre section heading, or are you a troll? --ColinFine (talk) 12:19, 18 September 2012 (UTC)

I think that's an example of a plain text message one might intercept and then send along in code. StuRat (talk) 13:23, 18 September 2012 (UTC)

If they resend the intercepted message to their HQ in Japanese or English plain text with "Midway" replaced by their code word "AF", it's extremely stupid because they have given the U.S. a part of their secret language.

If I understand cipher correctly, there are at least two layers of coding. The first is to replace your written language into some sort of mumbo jumbo. For example, you may replace all instances of "ice cream" into "frog pie" or "watery venus ruler". The text is still readable by humans, they just don't under what you mean. Then you encrypt your message using a machine. The encoded message is now not readable.

It sounds to me that the U.S. had deciphered the secret code but could not figure out what "AF" mean. They released a plain text message from Midway. Then they intercepted a coded message which, after decoding, turned out to contain "AF" in it.

This is quite unimaginable to me. I don't think anyone who knows how to operate a military intelligence system can be so stupid to let his operators encrypt ALL MESSAGES to the point that his enemies can use them to generate test output so easily.

Suzuki: "Kato san, I just learned they have opened a new sushi bar on Midway Island!"

Kato: "That's great!"

Suzuki: "Let's pass this wonderful news to the HQ!"

Kato: "And don't forget to use the word 'AF'!!!!!"

It looks like they are sending out grocery store flyers to attract unsuspicious Japanese customers to me. Intelligence people are not supposed to take a bite so easily.

To me, it looks like some people have created a lousy story to cover some secrets even after the end of the war. -- Toytoy (talk) 13:24, 18 September 2012 (UTC)

Well, the person who decided to send the message was probably not a cryptologist, so it's an easy mistake to make for a layman. Another famous example of Japanese incompetence in the field is when they sent the declaration of war to the Japanese ambassador to the US, with orders to present it just prior to the attack. They sent it both in code and marked "for the ambassador's eyes only", which meant the ambassador had to learn how to decode it himself. They failed to allow time for this, and thus their declaration of war was late, which was a great propaganda blow, as they would forever be remembered for a "sneak attack" on Pearl Harbor. StuRat (talk) 13:21, 18 September 2012 (UTC)

The Pearl Harbor decoding fiasco is another weird story to me. Sometimes, TOP TOP TOP SECRETS are just broadcast around the world so everyone can hear. A message can be read by a soft-spoken lady over shortwave radio: "34 74 90 48 09 23 54 ...." No one knows who was the listener. The message could be from Tokyo but the message could be heard in Moscow or Singapore. Just about everyone who has a receiver can get the message. Then only the Japanese ambassador has the one-time pad to decode the message. This kind of secret code can be decoded in minutes.

I think the message was received and typed by a radio operator in the Japanese embassy. He did this job all day long not knowing which message goes to whom. And probably more than 90% of the messages were for other unrelated diplomatic or military units. Another officer picked up messages for this embassy and one of them was marked "FOR THE AMBASSADOR'S EYES ONLY".

The ambassador took the message to his top secret room where the one-time pad is stored and decode the message. It won't take very long to decode the full text. You don't need to be a math guy. You just need to look up the one-time table.

I am very skeptical to these war-time stories. -- Toytoy (talk) 14:01, 18 September 2012 (UTC)

There's still some learning curve. For example, is the current code just written on a page of the code book with today's date on it, or is it more complicated than that ? StuRat (talk) 00:28, 19 September 2012 (UTC)

According to Attack on Pearl Harbor#Japanese declaration of war, the message delivered by the ambassador was 5,000 words long. Decoding it by hand could easily take several seconds per letter. (Also, according to the article, the message didn't formally declare war or even sever diplomatic relations.) -- BenRG (talk) 20:02, 19 September 2012 (UTC)

True, but it was a strong indication they would attack. According to Japanese_declaration_of_war_on_the_United_States_and_the_British_Empire#Text_of_the_document, the text printed in Japanese newspapers that evening made it clear: "We hereby declare War on the United States of America and the British Empire.". StuRat (talk) 20:20, 19 September 2012 (UTC)

Consider that sending the info along uncoded is also a problem, as then the US, who they presumed didn't know about their plan to attack Midway, would wonder why there was so much interest in a seemingly minor detail at Midway, which would only be significant if it was about to be attacked and thus cut off from resupply. StuRat (talk) 13:26, 18 September 2012 (UTC)

These listening post operator must have been trained and trustworthy people to access military secrets. I really don't think the Japanese forces could have been so unwise to train their people to encode plain text messages. On the other hand, many listening posts are created to pass all intercepted information all the way up. They don't review and filter information. However, they select the proper channel to transfer each piece of information. You only use your best encryption system to send top secret messages. -- Toytoy (talk) 13:35, 18 September 2012 (UTC)

I still say that the number of people who know a code is greater than the number of trained cryptologists. As such, they may have thought the code was unbreakable (particularly if they were unfamiliar with computer decryption). And, if it was unbreakable, then sending all messages in that code would make sense. StuRat (talk) 13:56, 18 September 2012 (UTC)

In the intelligence business, you assume ALL YOUR ciphers are broken and EVERYONE in your country could be a God-damn @#$% traitor. Then you use creative and inhuman ways to mitigate damages. -- Toytoy (talk) 14:08, 18 September 2012 (UTC)

The screw-up, such as it was, is that the Japanese cryptologists hadn't caught on that the US had caught on that the Japanese had broken a US code (wow, confusing!). "Midway's water generator is broken" wasn't sent in the clear, but rather in a US code that was known to be broken over transmission media that were known to be interceptable (I forget if over air or via tapped telegraph line). The Japanese cryptanalysis group then retransmitted that info, but not as a straight retransmission (if nothing else, swapping "AF" for "Midway", but also language translation, vagaries of word choice and grammar, etc). And even by the now-primitive standards of 1940s cryptography, encoding a subtly different plaintext message didn't provide additional value to a codebreaker. The Japanese did understand code compartmentalization (see Japanese naval codes, which discuss diplomatic vs military vs merchant), but there weren't all that many usable ones (nor are there today, really), and virtually all of them were broken at that point. Certainly you don't pick a code that is "less secure" for less important information; you pick the best code you've got. And that loops back to the main screw-up by the Japanese -- they didn't properly account for why the Americans were using a less-secure code. — Lomn 14:11, 18 September 2012 (UTC)

For a similar but subtly different concept, see gardening (cryptanalysis) - it was practical to make carefully planned actions in order to provoke a message with predictable elements of content, such as specific coordinates or codenames. Weather reports were often used for this as well - very pro-forma content, and often the complete text could be more or less predicted in advance. The goal here was to use it for breaking as yet unknown ciphers, but the same system also works for identifying codenames in broken ones, as at Midway. Andrew Gray (talk) 12:31, 20 September 2012 (UTC)

Canonical Works of Literature

Who decides which works are admitted to the canon of a particular culture? And how are those decisions made. ie. the body of rules, principles, or standards accepted as axiomatic and universally binding in a field of study or art: the neoclassical canon.

Thanks — Preceding unsigned comment added by HeraldJR (talk • contribs) 13:06, 18 September 2012 (UTC)

You seem to think that there's a formal process. I suppose, in the case of school boards setting curricula, there might be, but, in general, it's up to what individuals choose to read or ignore. This can change over time as tastes change. For example, Huckleberry Finn may lose popularity because of the name of the character "Nigger Jim". StuRat (talk) 13:15, 18 September 2012 (UTC)

If there will ever be a backlash over Nigger Jim, it hasn't happened yet. So far, public opinion of the text has been improving over time. Initially, Huckleberry Finn was tremendously unpopular in the South for its sympathetic treatment of blacks, and unsympathetic treatment of slavery and racism. Today, it's possible that the language (including the offending name) will be seen as archaic or distasteful, which might make it difficult for some to read. This wouldn't necessarily remove it from canon. On the other hand, if the U.S. gave up on Civil rights and re-instituted slavery, subsequent public view of Huckleberry might be weaker and the book could fall out of canon.--Robert Keiden (talk) 17:41, 19 September 2012 (UTC)

There is no single canon. There are, however, books that most educated people have read at some point in their lives. These sorts of things are largely determined by what sorts of books are assigned in places of education. Most Americans who have finished high school and college have probably read Hamlet, for example. (I myself was assigned to read it at least twice.) Over the years, the commonly-assigned books certainly change. I was assigned to read Invisible Man, for example, and not Moby Dick, whereas I imagine that thirty or forty years ago the latter would have been required reading and the former not. In terms of what books are included, there is no single formal process, but there are multitudes of general trends as to which books educators find "work well" with different ages and feel are important for educated people to have read. There are also issues of appropriateness — Ulysses is frequently ranked as one of the most important or best novels in the English language, but its difficulty for a reader, along with its explicit sexual content, mean it is unlikely to show up on all but the most challenging and insulated high school reading lists. (And despite its high praise, I suspect most educated people have not read it, though they probably have heard of it.) In prior eras you can find similar things at work, but it does usually fall back on formal educational systems. --Mr.98 (talk) 18:02, 18 September 2012 (UTC)

Check out Great books and Great Books of the Western World for a sample of views on the topic. The second link of course is a very famous series of books that intends to represent a canon that is somewhat fixed and definite. IBE (talk) 18:12, 18 September 2012 (UTC)

We also have western canon which deals with the same topic (but for art and music etc as well, not just literature). Adam Bishop (talk) 18:26, 18 September 2012 (UTC)

There is also the Five Foot Shelf. μηδείς (talk) 17:52, 19 September 2012 (UTC)

USATEMCOM

Any idea what USATEMCOM is or was? I've run across the term in a document from 1965: a manufacturing company in the USA (Indiana) was trying to contact them, and from the context I'm guessing that they were trying to become USATEMCOM's supplier for whatever they manufactured. A "Major General Turner" was involved, so it may well have been something in the US military. Google gives me just 20 results when I search for USATEMCOM, and they're all Portuguese pages where Google separated out the word to <USA tem com>. 2001:18E8:2:1020:B1B9:4E32:3CE8:AB45 (talk) 14:08, 18 September 2012 (UTC)

Well, the "USA" obviously refers to the United States of America. The "COM" typically means "command", in a military sense. The "TEM" could possibly mean temporary. Given the date, during the Vietnam War, I would guess this was a temporary command post set up for command and control of that war. StuRat (talk) 15:40, 18 September 2012 (UTC)

Most COMs use "US", not "USA" in their acronym. I've never heard of a temporary command with an acronym — by definition, the things with acronyms are usually established to one degree or another. That they would be dealing directly with a manufacturer like that seems unlikely. I don't think that's it. --Mr.98 (talk) 18:28, 18 September 2012 (UTC)

The "USA" in "USATEMCOM" probably just means "US Army". See U.S. Army Central (USARCENT) --Robert Keiden (talk) 00:24, 19 September 2012 (UTC)

Major General Carl C. Turner was the United States Army Provost Marshal General from 1964-1968, which seems like a pretty good match and a possibility. (As an aside, in 1971 he was sentenced to three years in jail for soliciting 136 firearms from the Chicago police department and keeping them for his own use.) I ran the acronym and variations of it through quite a few search engines (including military tech reports and Congressional reports/hearings) and came up with nothing. There was a company called Temcom, Inc., that made various aerospace/rocket sensors and things for the military and NASA, but all references I've found to them date at the earliest from the early 1980s. Knowing which company it was might help narrow it down in terms of what industry they worked in (e.g. electronics, versus metalworking, versus other things). --Mr.98 (talk) 18:28, 18 September 2012 (UTC)

I looked back at the document in question (it's regarding a letter to Birch Bayh's office; I work in the archives that has Bayh's papers) and can tell you very little. The sender is Grote Manufacturing of Madison, Indiana, but they don't specify what they're trying to sell. The document is a carbon of a letter from Bayh's office to the company responding to a letter that they sent to Bayh, which I can't find. I just noticed that the Byah staffer typed "US ARMY" on the top of the carbon; I'm sorry that I missed that earlier. This is everything I know about this document. 2001:18E8:2:1020:B1B9:4E32:3CE8:AB45 (talk) 19:34, 18 September 2012 (UTC)

More on Major General Turner: [6]. --Robert Keiden (talk) 00:24, 19 September 2012 (UTC)

I suppose that they're this company. 2001:18E8:2:1020:B1B9:4E32:3CE8:AB45 (talk) 19:49, 18 September 2012 (UTC)

Grote has been in business since 1901 , making automobile products since the 1920s, and have been focused on "high end" auto safety since ~ the 1930s. Whatever they wanted to sell was probably connected to transport. I wonder if USATEMCOM could be some misformation of TACOM (USATACOM?) In 1965 they could have been the responsible party for auto-related acquisitions (while in a state of major reorganizational overhaul [7].) The acronym could simply be wrong (Bayh's or Grote's mistake, or both). --Robert Keiden (talk) 00:24, 19 September 2012 (UTC)

That sounds pretty promising to me. --Mr.98 (talk) 14:05, 19 September 2012 (UTC)

Sidewalk with roof?

I suppose this is an architecture question. I'm trying to describe something in my screenplay and was wondering how I should refer to something. Typically, at any strip mall, at least in the US (I'm picturing a Wegmans), there's a sidewalk with a roof over it that is connected to the storefronts. The roof is supported on the other side by columns that go down the strip mall. Is there a word for this type of roofed sidewalk? Is there a word for this type of roof? Thanks! 129.3.184.139 (talk) 14:50, 18 September 2012 (UTC)

If it was in Italy I would say it was a loggia, but not sure if there is a different term for the wooden verandah-like structures that I think you are thinking of. --PalaceGuard008 (Talk) 14:55, 18 September 2012 (UTC)

I name them only as "covered sidewalks" because "loggia" seems a much too fanciful a term when compared with some of the classic ones. However, I think "loggia" is correct, in English and Italian, as the article linked above shows. Bielle (talk) 15:20, 18 September 2012 (UTC)

I think your first instinct was right. Calling it a loggia will likely lose many in a US audience. A "covered walkway" is the variant I would choose. You might also want to include a pic to illustrate exactly what you mean, as it could be covered in many ways, all the way down to a canopy. StuRat (talk) 15:34, 18 September 2012 (UTC)

Arcade? --Saddhiyama (talk) 15:37, 18 September 2012 (UTC)

Again, technically correct, but will make Americans think of video arcades. StuRat (talk) 15:43, 18 September 2012 (UTC)

Maybe porch, but they are usually for a single premises. "Covered sidewalk" is the term I would use. I presume you mean something like you would see in a Western, like in these examples: Virginia City, MT, Kingman, AZ; or southern hemisphere colonial-influenced architecture in these places: Broken Hill, NSW, Cobar, NSW and Simon's Town, Western Cape. Astronaut (talk) 17:34, 18 September 2012 (UTC)

Natively, the southern hemisphere colonial-influenced architectural examples you mention are called "verandahs", but they would normally be understood to be attached to each individual building, rather than a long arcade / loggia that would, for example, run down the whole block of buildings. --PalaceGuard008 (Talk) 12:38, 19 September 2012 (UTC)

See also stoa. —Tamfang (talk) 20:13, 18 September 2012 (UTC)

A portico. Like the ones in Bologna, which aren't shown well in our article. Itsmejudith (talk) 15:39, 19 September 2012 (UTC)

Collonade perhaps85.211.199.83 (talk) 20:25, 23 September 2012 (UTC)

Political parties of Israel mizrahi sephardi reform conservative non-zionism

Is there any political parties that advocates Mizrahi and Sephardi Jews who are Reform and Conservative Jews? Also, which political parties are non-zionist?

Wikipedia has an article titled Politics of Israel. If you have any further questions about any other countries, you can always answer them by reading Wikipedia articles titled "Politics of Whatever" where "Whatever" is the name of the country you are interested in. From those articles, you can follow links to individual articles about each party and find out what their positions are on various issues. --Jayron32 16:40, 18 September 2012 (UTC)

I think that answer was a bit unhelpful. The answer to the OP question is by no means self-evident by a quick reading of that article. --Soman (talk) 16:50, 18 September 2012 (UTC)

No, it isn't by a quick reading. Which is why there are links in articles which can be followed to find more articles. For example, one can find a link to the article titled Likud, which is an Israeli political party. That article explains the ideology of that party in some detail. The Politics of Israel article has further links to all of the other parties. Clicking on each link in turn will give a person access to the same information for each party. --Jayron32 16:56, 18 September 2012 (UTC)

The terms "Reform" and "Conservative" refer to streams of synagogue-based Judaism that don't exist as religious affiliations in Israel. What correspondence there may be with the synagogue-based Progressive Judaism movement in Israel has no necessary correlation to any political party, nor to the Sephardic or Mizrachi-identified populations. Israeli Jews who are halacha-observant and affiliate with an orthodox or Haredi (so-called ultra-Orthodox) community, are highly likely to support its associated political party. This helps ensure government support in terms of funding and legislation for their educational and welfare requirements, and seeking the imposition of halachic law upon all Jews in the country (e.g. marriage and burial) and in some spheres, all inhabitants (e.g. restricted public transportation on Shabbat). Israel's non-halacha-observant Jews, known as "secular" (Hebrew: חילוני, hiloni, m.pl. hilonim), are likely to vote for parties according to platform planks on national security and socioeconomic issues. Some parties (e.g. Meretz) campaign for pluralism and against "religious coercion" (i.e. imposition of halachic restrictions and requirements upon the secular and non-Jewish populations), as do some politicians (e.g. the late Josef "Tomy" Lapid) from more centrist parties. -- Deborahjay (talk) 20:17, 18 September 2012 (UTC)

Another approach to the OP's question would be to look at a sectorial interest group such as the Mizrahi Democratic Rainbow Coalition, and see which political party (if any) it's endorsed since its 1996 founding.-- Deborahjay (talk) 20:37, 18 September 2012 (UTC)

That's a really excellent and knowledgeable answer. Thanks for providing that insight! --Jayron32 21:21, 18 September 2012 (UTC)

Shas is the conservative Sephardic party, no? Well, mainsteam with regular government posts Lihaas (talk) 23:24, 18 September 2012 (UTC)

In a word: no. Shas is not conservative (with-a-capital-C) in the Jewish-religion sense: it's Sephardic Haredi, which is fundamentalist, advised by its spiritual leader, Rabbi Ovadia Yosef. Neither in the political sense: it's a large minority party whose platform is to support its mainly Mizrachi (Haredi or traditional) constituents' interests. To which end it enters into the government coalition led by a (larger minority) mainstream party, conditional upon receiving government ministries* and choice committee spots. This gives Shas the power to set policies within existing legislative frameworks, including influential budget allocations. *To appreciate this, note that the Interior Ministry in Israel, usually a top Shas demand, isn't about federal lands and natural resources like the U.S. DOI.-- Deborahjay (talk) 03:46, 19 September 2012 (UTC)

Good point about the small but important difference. Though i must point out that MOI's around the world are similar and unlike that of the DOI in the US.Lihaas (talk) 09:41, 19 September 2012 (UTC)

Non-Zionist parties exist in the shape of Arab parties and the Israeli Communist Party/Hadash. The latter receives very few Jewish votes though. --Soman (talk) 17:53, 19 September 2012 (UTC)

Either the Calendar is wrong or the Clock is. It's that simple.

There are 12 months in the year. There are 12 hours on a twelve hour clock.

Are these the undisputed indisputable facts? Are you with me so far? Now. Now. Take the apocalyptic year, 2012. And take an apocalyptic morning, let's say tomorrow morning. Let me claim that there is no way I will survive tomorrow morning.

At what point can I know for a fact that I was wrong. That, despite the unrelished meetings, I did survive? If the claim is that I will not survive tomorrow morning, I will know I am wrong at... (think of a time.)

Now if the claim is that we will not survive 2012, that claim can be falsified at..?

Okay. Your two answers were: 12:00 noon. That's when I know I was wrong. I survived the morning. 1-1-13. That's when we know we survived 2012. Do you see a bit of a discrepency here? Let's go back to the indisputable undisputed facts. There are 12 months in the year. There are 12 hours in the A.M. and 12 hours in the P.M. Yet after the last day of the 12th month it's the FIRST month and after the last minute of the ELEVENTH hour (not twelfth) it's the FIRST hour.

12 and 12. Twelve months. Twelve hours each in the a.m. and pm. No "zero o'clock" or "0/1/2013" on either one. Oh shit. I kind of fucked up here in my thinking in that, er, there is a minute 0 but there is no day 0. I guess I may be quite wrong here. But the hours - the hours - if you will excuse this little derailment.

THe hours go 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10, 11, 12-AND-SWITCH, 1, 2, 3,4 ,5 ,6 7, 8, 9, 10, 11, 12-AND-SWITCH

while the months go 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7 ,8, 9, 10, 11, 12, 1-AND-SWITCH, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10, 11 , 12, 1-AND-SWITCH

"january 1st" has the same mental feeling as "12:01 am". but one has a 1 (january) and one has a 12 (noon and midnight).

Either the Calendar is wrong or the Clock is.

logically the 1 o'clock should be at the top of the clock, just like January is the first page of the calendar. I rest my case, your honorables. I argued it as well as I could. I even kind of foreshadowed with "undisputed" and "indesputable" where the i and the u are different, having one or two legs respectively like the one or two digits of 1 and 12. but this is secondary to the blinding logic displayed previously.

the question

truly, verily, which is wrong? Thank you. 80.98.245.172 (talk) 18:39, 18 September 2012 (UTC)

You are - the way we mark the passage of time is essentially arbitrary, and nothing you have written demonstrates anything beyond this fact. AndyTheGrump (talk) 18:46, 18 September 2012 (UTC)

I am demonstrating and inconsistency. Mathematically, would it be possible to define two kinds of 7's instead of a nine, written identically but differing in value (one having the value previously known as "8" which now has the value previously known as "9" - a figure that no longer exists)? Of course. We could count: 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 7, 8 - with the two sevens having two different values, like a capital i versus lowercase l (identical in some fonts). But that's stupid. "How much is it? It's $7. "You mean $7 as in '5, 6, 7' or 7 as in '7, 8, 10'?" "Uh, the big seven." "Oh okay. So almost $8." "Right, almost $8. What used to be called $9." "I came for some groceries, not a history lesson" "Sorry." So you see, we could easily count, 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 7, 8, 10, 11, 12, 13, 14, 15, 16, 17, 17, 18, 20. and so on. But we don't. Because it's stupid.

So an argument against what's possible isn't really convincing. I would like to know which makes more sense. 80.98.245.172 (talk) 18:57, 18 September 2012 (UTC)

80.98.245.172 -- The clock uses modulo 12 arithmetic (see modulo arithmetic), except where "0" would occur as the name of an hour "12" is used instead. The fact is that hour numbering systems (originally "6th hour of the day" means noon etc.) were invented before the concept of mathematical 0 was commonly known in Eurasian cultures.. AnonMoos (talk) 22:38, 18 September 2012 (UTC)

AnonMoos: Exactly. And so does the calendar, except where a "0" would occur as the number of the month, "12" is used instead. So if it's both "modulo-12" arithmetic, why does one flip at 12 and one flip at 1? Or, are you saying that "the calendar uses modulo 12 arithmetic, except where "0" would occcur as the number of the month 1 is used instead, whereas on the clock where 0 would occur as the number of the hour, 12 is used instead? Which do you think is more natural? 80.98.245.172 (talk) 05:20, 19 September 2012 (UTC)

Using 1 for 0 makes more sense to me, because it derives from how we would talk. Think of how years are presented in a super-pretentious manner: The 2012th year of the Lord. By that standard, year 1 is "The 1st year of the Lord". It just makes sense. But looking at the history of counting the hour, it becomes obvious why the first hour would be a 12 and not a 1 or 0, and its simply because the clock is drawn as a circle. You start the day in the 0th hour and progress to 1, on and on to 12 (or in older systems, 24). Then it starts over. But when you look at the time during the 0th hour, the dial will be next to a 12. Is that why it's called 12 O'clock? I dunno. But I can see that connection being made for clocks, as opposed to months, which have names rather than numbers, and are not typically measured on a circle (I can confess however, to once finding an 18th century clock that did have a month dial). Someguy1221 (talk) 05:29, 19 September 2012 (UTC)

(edit conflict) Both the calandar and the clock derive from Babylonian times, this is covered some in the article Duodecimal which covers the use of base-12 systems in horology (the study of timekeeping) as deriving from Babylonian. The rest of your post sounds like amateur numerology which is akin to astrology and horoscopes in terms of a reliable field of study. So to give you a short answer, the fact that the number 12 shows up in various methods of time keeping (both hours and months) is because it derives from the base-12 numbering system in use in the Ancient Middle East. The "2012 is the end of the world" bit comes from a particular interpretation of the Mesoamerican Long Count calendar, which resets on December 21, 2012. There's nothing particularly notable about rolling over the Long Count calendar, it has happened 12 times in the past and nothing much happened on those dates. --Jayron32 18:49, 18 September 2012 (UTC)

User Jayron32, you seem not to have taken the time to get the meaning. Please raise your left hand to turn from AM to PM and vice versa as I count. 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10, 11, 12, 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10, 11, 12, 1, 2, 3, 4, 5... Okay. Now I am counting months. Please raise your left hand when we reach a new year. 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10, 11, 12, 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10, 11, 12, 1, 2, 3, 4, 5....

So you see, actually even though I gave you the same list, which is a 12-cycle, you are choosing two different points to roll over on. Does this make sense to you? That when we turn from 11 to 12 we go from am to pm or the end of the day in the case of midnight, whereas when we go not from 11th to the 12th month, but the 12th to the 1st we change years? Does this make sense to you? This kind of off-by-one error would make sense if the two things were divided in an off-by-one way, like there's 11 months but 12 hours or 12 of one, 13 of the other, or 10 and 11. But dividing into 12 in both cases, this does not make sense. I understand that it's historical. I'm asking from a usability perspective.

Also, I have a qualm about the fact that people say we use the base-ten number system due to having ten fingers. In fact we only name 9 of the 10 digits. (Which is why ten takes two digits). If I count from my right pinkie in, I can only give 9 of the fingers digit-names; the tenth finger has no name, and is supposed to represent a roll-over. We should be using base-11, so that we can count from 0 to 10, and then roll over to 1-0 when we run out of fingers. 80.98.245.172 (talk) 19:00, 18 September 2012 (UTC)

Yeah, it doesn't work that way. Good luck getting the small group of people known as "everyone else" to adopt your system. As AndytheGrump already notes, there is an arbitrariness built into the system. Arbitrary systems are by definition inconsistent. They don't change merely because they are inconsisent. It is what it is. If you want to invent your own personal clocks and calandars and eleven fingered hands, be our guest. But don't expect the whole world to suddenly wake up one morning and agree that your system is somehow "better". --Jayron32 19:04, 18 September 2012 (UTC)

Hi, Jayron. Thanks for taking the time to see what I'm talking about. Actually, I don't want to change anything. I would just like to hear some arguments about (for example if we were starting ab ovo) which one "would be" better. Which one makes more sense all other things being equal. I think it's quite weird to change AM-PM at a different time from changing from 12 to roll around to 1. Don't you agree? If high noon is when we get to pm, wouldn't have putting high noon at 12:59 plus one have kind of made more sense? In this case the clock would be slightly rotated for 1 on top. Thanks for your ideas. I realize this is a bit pedantic. 80.98.245.172 (talk) 19:31, 18 September 2012 (UTC)

But not in a good way. When the time is 1 o'clock, that means the first hour past noon/midnight has just ended. It doesn't mean it's just starting. The first hour starts on the stroke of noon/midnight, but doesn't end till an hour later. It's like it takes a whole year for a baby to become 1 year old. It enters its first year of life the moment it's born, but the number 1 doesn't get to be associated with it till it's finished its first year.

The calendar is differently organised. It becomes the first month (January) immediately the 12th one (December) ends. We don't have to wait till January is completed before we start calling it January. The moment we turn the page, we're on the January page. Same with the days of the month. The 1st day starts immediately the last one of the previous month ended. The moment we turn the page, we're on the "1st of the month" page. The first hour of the first day starts at that point, too, but we have culturally agreed to recognise it only at the end of the hour in our timekeeping language. Some other languages may have a completely different way of telling the time, where they talk about "7 minutes of the first hour" to mean what we call 12:07. It's a language issue, not a logic or science issue. -- ♬ Jack of Oz ♬ ^{[your turn]} 20:14, 18 September 2012 (UTC)

Actually, if we are going to be pedantic, it's worth noting that trying to make the system less arbitrary (or at least, easier to work with) has been tried before - in post revolutionary France, where decimal time was introduced, along with a decimal calender - though the latter named the first day of each ten-day week primidi which still leaves the problem the OP notes. The system didn't really catch on - possibly because the Republic didn't have the power to fix the rather fundamental problem that 365-and-a-bit isn't a power of ten. AndyTheGrump (talk) 20:31, 18 September 2012 (UTC)

There's nothing wrong with either system, just a different conventional way of assigning numbers to periods of time (as stated above). More peculiar if the fact that there was no year zero in our date system (the year after 1 BC was 1 AD, but even this is logical if you think of it as first year before and first year after). Mathematicians cannot agree on whether to start the natural numbers at 0 or 1. Dbfirs 20:33, 18 September 2012 (UTC)

With respect, I think "the year after 1 BC was 1 AD" is a wonderfully wrong-headed view of history. As Vicki Pollard would say, "Yes, but no, but yes, but no". First, they created a new era, starting with the supposed birth year of Jesus. Pages of a book, months of the year, fingers of your hand, notches on your bedhead etc all use the natural numbers, starting with 1. It would have made no sense to start the Christian Era with any number than 1. Later, they dreamt up the "BC" (latterly "BCE") thing to refer to the years before Jesus's birth. Likewise, it would have made no sense to start the BC Era with any number than 1. The AD series and the BC series are both perfectly fine in their own right. The only problem is that they're not easily amenable to a mathematical view of history, which demands an unbroken arithmetic series. That does not make it "peculiar" that there is no Year 0 in our system. It would have been extremely peculiar if there had been. -- ♬ Jack of Oz ♬ ^{[your turn]} 21:15, 18 September 2012 (UTC)

Later thought: Look what happened when the Gregorian Calendar was introduced in 1582. Thursday 4 October (Julian) was immediately followed by Friday 15 October (Gregorian). The Gregorian calendar was not retrospective, so there's a 10-day discontinuity in the series of dates where the Julian interfaces with the Gregorian. I've never heard anyone who says it's peculiar that there's no Year 0, say that it's peculiar there are no such dates as 5 through 14 October 1582. -- ♬ Jack of Oz ♬ ^{[your turn]} 03:04, 19 September 2012 (UTC)

Yes, I suppose it's only "peculiar" to a mathematician who thinks of BC numbers as negative integers, and to astronomers who really do use a 0 (year). I wasn't criticising historians (or Bede) for the use of "first year after" and "first year before" which, as I wrote above, is equally logical. It all depends on the original meaning of the numbers that we now use. I agree that the "missing days" are even more peculiar, and the idea was rejected both by some governments and by many of the general public at the time. Dbfirs 06:51, 19 September 2012 (UTC)

This is a consequence of the fact that dates are specified within a period (month, or year), while times are specified relative to a point of time. There is nothing fundamental about these choices: the Roman calendar specified dates relative to a point (a day) rather than within a month. --ColinFine (talk) 20:49, 18 September 2012 (UTC)

I'm curious to know which millennium the OP thinks the year 2000 was part of. :) ←Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots→ 21:25, 18 September 2012 (UTC)

• My reading of the question implies that the issues here are primarily philosophical in nature. I'd direct the OP to the venerable Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy, in particular here, [8], [9], and here [10] Weighty reading, but far more reliable than any WP articles on the topics. SemanticMantis (talk) 22:46, 18 September 2012 (UTC)

Another thing that the OP hasn't noticed is that the numbering of the month's is also quite arbitrary. The new year used to fall on the spring equinox. Starting the year on 1 January has only been going on for about the last 400 years - Gregorian calendar#Beginning of the year has some more information. If you really want to experience some freakyness with dates and time, you should travel across the international date line and have the same date again or end up wondering what happened to Monday (depending on which direction you cross). Astronaut (talk) 19:42, 19 September 2012 (UTC)

For the reckoning of time you first need to do two things:

• divide the time into intervals of more or less equal lenght and then subdivide them into shorter intervals, thus creating a hierarchy of intervals from very short to very long (seconds, minutes, hours, days, months, years, centuries, eras, eons, etc.);
• pick an arbitrary starting point in time from which you will count the intervals.

Now, there are generally two ways to do the reckoning:

• telling how many full intervals have passed since the starting point;
• or telling in which interval, counting from the starting point, we are now.

Example of the first method: when you say it's 1:05 a.m., you mean that 1 full hour and 5 full minutes have passed since the last midnight. Let's call it the clock method.
Example of the other method: when you say it's 19 September 2012, you mean that we are in the 20th day of the ninth month of the 2012th year since the beginning of the Common Era. It is, of course, the calendar method.
It doesn't mean that we could not reverse the scheme. We might use the calendar method for telling the time of the day and instead of saying it's 1:05 a.m., we could say it's the 6th minute of the second hour of the day (06.02). We could also use the clock method for dates, e.g. today is 2011 years, eight months, and 18 full days since the beginning of the Common Era (2011:08:18). But we don't, because the commonly accepted convention is to use the clock method for the clock and the calendar method for the calendar.
One more thing: there's no interval zero in either of these methods. In the clock method, 00:01 means that only one full minute has passed since midnight and we're at the beginning of the first hour of the day. In the calendar method, the first year of the Common Era is AD 1; the first year of the second century of the Common Era is AD 101; and the first year of the third millenium is AD 2001. It's no rocket science, just simple arithmetics. — Kpalion^(talk) 23:19, 19 September 2012 (UTC)

famous & mean book reviews

Howdy. English doesn't seem to have an equivalent to German Verriss (dict.leo suggests scorcher/scorching review or slating (review), but basically it means a mean takedown of a piece of art, specifically a devastating book review. Anyway, this is what I am looking for: withering, mean, even evil, but also hilarious reviews which are famous/legendary works of literature in their own right. My favorites so far include Clive James' 1978 review of Brezhnev: A Short Biography and Dwight MacDonald's 1958 By Cozzens Possessed, which effectively destroyed Cozzen's reputation as a writer. Might make a nice anthology, looking forward to suggestions: --Janneman (talk) 20:43, 18 September 2012 (UTC)

Eduard Hanslick's review of the Tchaikovsky Violin Concerto is notorious, as is Dorothy Parker's terse dismissal of The House at Pooh Corner. --ColinFine (talk) 20:55, 18 September 2012 (UTC)

Also see The Literary Offenses of Fenimore Cooper for one by Mark Twain.Taknaran (talk) 21:09, 18 September 2012 (UTC)

Hanslick's is one of hundreds of bad reviews of music contained in The Lexicon of Musical Invective by Nicolas Slonimsky, described as "a compilation of hilariously bad reviews by critics of composers since Beethoven's time." -- ♬ Jack of Oz ♬ ^{[your turn]} 21:42, 18 September 2012 (UTC)

Having just read Clive James' and Mark Twain's superlative examples of the art of murder by review, I have to wonder what either would have had to say about Wikipedia's prose - I suspect that it might be painful to read. Meanwhile, I'll add "Eschew surplusage" to my list of obnoxious but necessary edit summaries. ;-) AndyTheGrump (talk) 03:03, 19 September 2012 (UTC)

Diana Rigg, the actress, once assembled a collection of devastatingly-hostile theatre reviews called No Turn Unstoned (1982, bibliographic information at the Wikipedia article). While I've glanced briefly at this book in a bookstore, I've neither acquired, borrowed or read it. —— Shakescene (talk) 05:52, 19 September 2012 (UTC)

I have adored Clive James' reviews ever since, as a teenager, I read a piece in (I think) The Sunday Times in which he described a recent Christmas TV special thus: Demis Roussos looked and sounded like a sack of rubbish being attacked by rats. Oh, to find a copy again. I have read more than once about an infamous review of a theatre revue called A Good Time, which simply read: "No." but a source escapes me so far. - Karenjc 20:21, 19 September 2012 (UTC)

Ebert's Most Hated. --NellieBly (talk) 18:26, 21 September 2012 (UTC)

Michael Moorcock's critical review of Tolkien, C. S. Lewis, and others in Epic Pooh. -84user (talk) 11:27, 22 September 2012 (UTC)

UN General Assembly Chamber

Oddly we dont have a page for this, but does anyone know the size of the hall? How many delegations sit in each row? How many rows? And what is at the back where the non-member state entities sit (Like Palestine)Lihaas (talk) 23:15, 18 September 2012 (UTC)

But we do have a page on the United Nations Headquarters#Structures, including this paragraph

The General Assembly building holds the General Assembly Hall which has a seating capacity of 1,800. At 165 ft (50 m) long by 115 ft (35 m) wide, it is the largest room in the complex. The Hall has two murals by the French artist Fernand Léger. At the front of the chamber, is the rostrum containing the green marble desk for the President of the General Assembly, Secretary-General and Under-Secretary-General for General Assembly Affairs and Conference Services and matching lectern for speakers.[8] Behind the rostrum is the UN emblem on a gold background.[26] Flanking the rostrum is a paneled semi-circular wall that tapers as it nears the ceiling and surrounds the front portion of the chamber. In front of the paneled walls are seating areas for guests and within the wall are windows which allow translators to watch the proceedings as they work. The ceiling of the hall is 75 ft (23 m) high and surmounted by a shallow dome ringed by recessed light fixtures. The General Assembly Hall was last altered in 1980 when capacity was increased to accommodate the increased membership. Each of the 192 delegations has six seats in the hall with three at a desk and three alternate seats behind them.[8]

—— Shakescene (talk) 06:06, 19 September 2012 (UTC)

Thanks, but does anyone know if how many delegationgs sit on each row?Lihaas (talk) 09:46, 19 September 2012 (UTC)

Well, since the back of the Assembly chamber seems wider than the front (opening out like a fan from the rostrum), rather than the same width (like a cylindrical aeroplane/airplane), I don't think there's a uniform number of delegations per row. You'd really have to look at the actual seating plan, probably best obtained by asking the UN's Department of Public Information directly if you can't physically visit the UN and take the tour. Otherwise, examine a good, detailed, recent photograph or photographs of a General Assembly session. —— Shakescene (talk) 07:56, 20 September 2012 (UTC)

I am still looking for something more recent, but this 2002 seating chart may get things started.    → Michael J Ⓣ Ⓒ Ⓜ 08:20, 20 September 2012 (UTC)

This interview explains how the seats are re-assigned each year.    → Michael J Ⓣ Ⓒ Ⓜ 08:26, 20 September 2012 (UTC)

Honolulu in 1840

Resolved

Can somebody help me make out the exact wordings in this image? And if anybody know who may have been the artist (there is a name in the words but I have idea who he is or if he was the artist)? --KAVEBEAR (talk) 23:42, 18 September 2012 (UTC)

The top line says Honolulu, Oahu, Nov. 1840. J D. Dana from shipboard. The bottom line is more difficult, but possibly says XXXX Exploring Exhibit --- my best guess is Milken Exploring Exhibit, but that's a wild guess. The artist is James Dwight Dana -- I have added a picture of his signature here so you can compare. Looie496 (talk) 00:09, 19 September 2012 (UTC)

Followup -- actually the bottom line says Wilkes Exploring Expedition, better known as the United States Exploring Expedition. Looie496 (talk) 00:17, 19 September 2012 (UTC)

Something else odd about that pic, it says it was done from "shipboard", but he's clearly looking down at the town. Was he in the crow's nest ? StuRat (talk) 02:11, 19 September 2012 (UTC)

It's one of those time-honored "bird's eye view" illustrations, in this case as if the bird in question were a seagull. ←Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots→ 11:43, 19 September 2012 (UTC)

Thank you everyone.--KAVEBEAR (talk) 20:27, 20 September 2012 (UTC)