Wikipedia:Reference desk/Archives/Humanities/2014 August 14

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August 14

Divine Coincidence (property of New Keynesian models)

Someone added the flow paragraph and reference to the article three days ago:

"Recently, it was shown that the divine coincicidence does not necessarily hold in the non-linear form of the standard New-Keynesian model.[4] This property would only hold if the monetary authority is set to keep the inflation rate at exactly 0%, which is the rate about which the linear form above is obtained as a first-order approximation of the non-linear model. At any other desired target for the inflation rate, there is an endogenous trade-off, even under no extra real imperfections such as sticky wages, and the divine coincidence no longer holds"

"[4] Alves, S. A. L., 2014, "Lack of Divine Coincidence in New-Keynesian Models", Journal of Monetary Economics 67: 33-46".

This edition, from an unidentified user on IP 200.218.213.80, clearly intended to promote a specific paper. It looks like self-promotion as the paper author's works at the brazilian central bank (http://scholar.google.com.br/citations?user=blrcoKIAAAAJ&hl=pt-BR), which holds the mentioned IP.

So, are the referred changes relevant, or it must be undone? — Preceding unsigned comment added by Maiaepadua (talk • contribs) 20:15, 14 August 2014 (UTC)

WP:RSN or the article talk page are probably better places to ask this question. The issue is whether or not the Journal of Monetary Economics counts as a reliable source - based on our article about the journal, I would say it does, but my opinion isn't decisive. Tevildo (talk) 20:50, 14 August 2014 (UTC)

A Level Results, Universities and UCAS Track

How soon prior to A-Level results day do higher education institutions in the UK receive A-Level results. I'd imagine it's quite soon given that they have to update UCAS's Track system for thousands of new undergraduate students. Do they receive the results in advance, update track until results day with the option for UCAS's software to only reveal it on results day? Nottingham Trent University sent emails to prospective students about their results on wednesday, and UCAS are not happy about it at all? Any information would be greatly appreciated --Andrew 00:22, 14 August 2014 (UTC)

This note, from 2008 suggests the embargo is rather less than a week. -- Finlay McWalterᚠTalk 00:30, 14 August 2014 (UTC)

Every year UCAS has the embargo, every year someone cocks up and releases early, and every year UCAS yells at them. This is UCAS' recent note nagging the HEIs about security; it's mostly the digital equivalent of "don't leave it on the train". -- Finlay McWalterᚠTalk 00:38, 14 August 2014 (UTC)

• See if I was an A-Level student I'd rather have my results before the University and then give them a few days to wait for track to update, rather than haing to wait until the 14th; although I suppose some students just want to have their place confirmed on results day. Luckily I did an Access to HE Diploma and new I'd got in the day my course ended in June --Andrew 01:08, 14 August 2014 (UTC)

Why are european jews white?

If they are descended from middle easterners, and let's assume they left the middle east 2-3 thousand years ago, shouldn't they still be brown? After all, Romani people came from India thousands of years ago, and they are still brown. 69.121.131.137 (talk) 00:30, 14 August 2014 (UTC)

Skin tone can change over the generations. Italians tend to be dark-skinned, like Greeks and other Mediterraneans. But how dark-skinned are multi-generational Italian-Americans? And for that matter, look at the wide range of skin tones from the north to the south of India. There's an article on Skin color which may explain some things, though I haven't read it yet. But I would point out that many Jews tend to have a shade darker skin tone than do many British whites, for example. ←Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots→ 00:37, 14 August 2014 (UTC)

The word "white", standing alone without any further specificity or elucidation, is unlikely to clarify or explain too much in this context... AnonMoos (talk) 01:19, 14 August 2014 (UTC)

To add to the stuff about skin color changing over time, in addition to skin color changing through evolution, I'm sure a heck of a lot of intermarriage occurred as well. So while the religion may have passed down, we aren't necessarily looking at people who have a "pure" middle eastern heritage. I have no knowledge of the history of Judaism though. Bali88 (talk) 01:24, 14 August 2014 (UTC)

Sun. InedibleHulk (talk) 01:28, 14 August 2014 (UTC)

It has nothing to do with the sun, as the question itself (read, the reference to Romani people) clearly shows. I have been to Israel, and the people there are fair-skinned, and essentially European in appearance, though with various admixtures of slightly Middle-Eastern skin tone and facial features. I assume the fairness is because of intermarriage, just as the darker tone of Italian and Spanish people would have something to do with the northward migration of African people. Likewise, the fair skin of most Europeans isn't just a function of latitude, since there were numerous incursions of various peoples from the north, who descended on the Roman Empire as it fell apart. Again, Indigenous Australians, at all latitudes, have had dark skin (intermarriage is of course changing this), because they came from the north. This is attested by the article, although I admit it does not specifically assert this. IBE (talk) 04:57, 14 August 2014 (UTC)

Sure, if you presume the Roma are darker than all "white people" for the same reason northern Jews are lighter than all "brown people". Two different stories, though. InedibleHulk (talk) 17:51, 14 August 2014 (UTC)

Looking at modern Israel tells us nothing... since the majority of modern Israelis are within one or two generations of immigration to the region. To make an analogy, if the Congo became a haven of mass immigration for Scandinavians, we would not expect the grand children of these immigrants to be black... in fact it would be surprising to not to see lots of people with fair skin, blond hare and blue eyes. Give it a thousand years of intermarriage with the black Congolese population and that will change. Blueboar (talk) 15:22, 14 August 2014 (UTC)

In fact, sun exposure can change the skin tone of a population over the course of a couple of thousands of years.[1] Jewish people first entered northern Europe during the Roman empire, about 2,000 years ago. That would be long enough for their skin to have become lighter than that of their Middle Eastern forebears. The Romani people have not been in northern Europe for as long. They first reached the Balkan countries around the 9th century, but their skin tone is not very different from that of Mediterranean Europeans. They did not reach northern Europe until the 15th century, or just over 500 years ago. That leaves far fewer generations for adaptation to a less sunny climate or for intermarriage than Jewish people in northern Europe have had, so it is not surprising if the average skin tone of Romani is darker. Marco polo (talk) 14:36, 14 August 2014 (UTC)

Wouldn't Romani potentially be a similar example? As you mentioned, their skin tone isn't that different from those in the areas they've been living for many generations. While we don't know the skin tone of their ancestors, if it's true that the Jat people have the same recent common ancenstors, their skin tones do seem to be at variance (how much and in which directions from their ancestors we don't know). Nil Einne (talk) 16:53, 14 August 2014 (UTC)

Except you're making assumptions that aren't true. They are primarily endogamous, in fact the main thrust behind genetic studies on jews is that genetic admixture from non-jewish Europeans was minimal, and they have more in common with other jewish ethnicities than they do with their non-jewish counterparts from the country they inhabit. A few thousands years is not sufficient time for natural selection to select for lighter skinned people, nor is their immigration to Europe that much earlier than the Romani people. It was only a thousand years at best, that's not long enough to produce such drastic changes in the phenotype of all jewish populations. 108.170.113.22 (talk) 16:59, 14 August 2014 (UTC)

Middle eastern people don't have especially dark skin. They tend to have darker hair and eyes than northern Europeans, but so do southern Europeans, and northern Europe isn't short of people with dark hair and eyes who tan easily either, which just makes middle-easterners dark complexioned white people. I seem to remember someone on the refdesk not very long ago questioning whether Greeks were white, and I sense a tendency to redefine "white" to mean "northern European", which combined with this question's focus on Jews makes me a little uncomfortable. --Nicknack009 (talk) 17:14, 14 August 2014 (UTC)

More often than not, middle easterners are tanned, with some variation in both directions. The conundrum is that pretty much all European jews are white, and look indistinguishable from non-jewish European populations. 69.121.131.137 (talk) 00:41, 15 August 2014 (UTC)

Do you have a reference for this? What you have said directly contradicts Marco polo's referenced answer, specifically the bit where you say "A few thousands years is not sufficient time ..." IBE (talk) 06:56, 16 August 2014 (UTC)

Remember, the sun doesn't just tan people's skin temporarily with heat, but tickles their DNA with funkier rays. InedibleHulk (talk) 17:55, 14 August 2014 (UTC)

Yes, but doesn't that address the "negative" of the question: "Why are Middle Eastern Jews dark-skinned?" It would be the absence (relatively) of Sun in Europe that accounts for the whiteness of European Jews. -- Jack of Oz ^{[pleasantries]} 21:44, 14 August 2014 (UTC)

The sun tans and damages DNA. I'm certainly no geneticist or statistician, just a guy. But it seems that a freak mutation regarding melanin should be more likely to decrease its production, since there are more ways to screw a task up than complete it. I'm not talking about systems working as they should, where more UV-B means faster melanogenesis. I'm talking about a tribe of mutants (no offense) whose ancestors went well beyond the warning signs of sunburn and experienced the underlying problem of their code glitching. Maybe their ancestors got similarly cooked and had their internal conversion codes mangled, allowing more damage before repair begins. No sources this time, though. InedibleHulk (talk) 03:23, 19 August 2014 (UTC)

I would point out that the word white with reference to people does not have a clearly defined or universally agreed meaning. People will disagree on who is white, and I agree with Nicknack that the legacy of racism that surrounds the term makes it problematic. To 108.170..., it is clear that you did not carefully read my earlier post or the source that I linked to it, but you are simply incorrect. Marco polo (talk) 18:01, 14 August 2014 (UTC)

• Is white a helpful term here? Perhaps if we phrase the question as to why Jews appear caucasian or mixed; by the way as an ethinic group are they considered a Semitic people? --Andrew 00:06, 15 August 2014 (UTC)

• No, caucasian is an even less useful term because it doesn't even refer to skin color. Indians for example are caucasian. 69.121.131.137 (talk) 00:33, 15 August 2014 (UTC)

Indians (I assume you mean from India) are not Caucasian. But then again, neither are Germans. Well, for the most part anyway. I'm sure there are some Germans with recent Armenian ancestry. --Trovatore (talk) 01:09, 15 August 2014 (UTC)

Yes they are. "Caucasian race (also Caucasoid[1] or Europid[2]) is the general physical type of some or all of the populations of Europe, North Africa, the Horn of Africa, Western Asia, Central Asia and South Asia" 69.121.131.137 (talk) 01:59, 15 August 2014 (UTC)

No one should ever say "Caucasian" to mean the supposed racial grouping. It's just flat wrong. A Caucasian comes from the Caucasus. Using it in any other way is just plain incorrect.

If you say Caucasoid, that's different; it's a bit dated as a concept, but it's still a reasonably well-defined grouping of populations that includes most Europeans, and if that's what you mean then that's what you mean. But not Caucuasian. Lose it from your vocabulary, except in its correct and proper sense. --Trovatore (talk) 02:05, 15 August 2014 (UTC)

How you think things should or shouldn't be used has nothing to do with how things are. I just proved to you that Indians are caucasian, so you're wrong. If you have a problem with that, take it up with anthropologists and tell them to redefine it to how you think it should be defined. Good luck with that. 69.121.131.137 (talk) 02:20, 15 August 2014 (UTC)

You did nothing of the kind. And anthropologists do not use the term that way. --Trovatore (talk) 02:24, 15 August 2014 (UTC)

Yes I did. The next assertion is a fallacy, what matters is how the term is used in anthropology, and Indians are caucasian as I proved. You're wrong, asserting to the contrary doesn't make you right, it makes you stubborn. 69.121.131.137 (talk) 02:35, 15 August 2014 (UTC)

You didn't prove crap. You gave a quote in which the term "Caucasian race" (not "Caucasian" by itself, btw) was used. You didn't even say where it came from, and you certainly didn't demonstrate that anthropologists use it. --Trovatore (talk) 02:44, 15 August 2014 (UTC)

You're wrong, it happens, set aside your ego and get over it. 69.121.131.137 (talk) 04:02, 15 August 2014 (UTC)

I am certainly not wrong that you haven't proved anthropologists use this terminology. It is possible that they do, I suppose — I'm not an anthropologist (and I'm pretty sure you're not either). But you haven't given any evidence that they do. --Trovatore (talk) 04:05, 15 August 2014 (UTC)

I don't need to, it's a strawman fallacy. I can find a mathematician that says 3.14 is pi, that doesn't mean it is pi. What mattters is what pi is in mathematics, and similarly, it doesn't matter what this or that anthropologist uses as terminology, what matters is how the term is used in the field of anthropology. 69.121.131.137 (talk) 11:08, 15 August 2014 (UTC)

Don't see how that changes much, but fine though if you find any mathematician who says π is 3.14, well, he's either pressed for time or not much of a mathematician. You haven't given any evidence that that is how the term is used in the field of anthropology. --Trovatore (talk) 17:05, 15 August 2014 (UTC)

You're feigning ignorance again. You're pretending like you are blissfully ignorant of the citations at the bottom of wikipedia articles despite the fact that you're a wikipedia editor. You're wrong. Just admit it, say you're sorry, you're trying to save face on the internet, you're wrong, and you apologize, and we'll forget the whole thing happened. 69.121.131.137 (talk) 21:12, 15 August 2014 (UTC)

I take it that you're talking about the article Caucasian race. Let's take a look at what it says.

The lead paragraph says "the term" (doesn't specify whether Caucasian, the one I object to, or Caucasoid, the sort of OK one) was used in biological anthropology. Note the past-tense was. It says, on the other hand, that Caucasoid remains in use, which I have not disputed.

The article pretty much continues in that vein. Instances of Caucasian, as they relate to anthropology, are almost universally phrased in the past tense.

There is an exception way down in the "Usage in the United States" section, where we see the following sentence:

“ Besides its use in anthropology and related fields, the term "Caucasian" has often been used in the United States in a different, social context to describe a group commonly called "White people". ”

However, this is the second paragraph of a section whose first paragraph talks about Caucasoid, not Caucasian. The "use in anthropology" bit is not specifically cited, not dated, and is in the context of the equation of Caucasian with "white", which you yourself understand is a bad and imprecise usage.

So bottom line, there are two ways Caucasian might be used as a macro-racial designation, and both of them are bad and imprecise. Identifying Caucasian with Caucasoid is bad because it's totally outmoded (even more so than the concept of "Caucasoid"), and because it invites confusion with Caucasian in its proper sense (that is, persons and peoples from the Caucasus), whereas Caucasoid does not.

On the other hand, using Caucasian as a euphemism for "white" is bad simply because euphemisms are bad in general, and because it is an attempt to make something sound more precise, while actually making it simply inaccurate.

Hope this helps, --Trovatore (talk) 08:05, 16 August 2014 (UTC)

In the traditional (i.e. old-fashioned) high-level division of races, everything from the palest Norwegian to the darkest (India) Indian is/was considered "Caucasian" or "Caucasoid". ←Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots→ 02:39, 15 August 2014 (UTC)

White in this context means they look European. European jews don't look middle eastern, they look like Europeans, because they are Europeans. That link doesn't elucidate much, and is contradicted by facts. If skin color can change so drastically in such a short period of time even without gene flow, why are Inuits and other Native Americans not white? They lived in colder environments even longer than jews did, yet they are darker than jews and look nothing like Europeans. I do not doubt that lack of sunlight will cause natural selection to select for lighter skinned individuals, but not on the time scale of a few thousand years, that's contradicted by other dark skinned populations living in cold environments. Simply asserting that anyone who disagrees with you is incorrect is a rather facile argument. 69.121.131.137 (talk) 00:33, 15 August 2014 (UTC)

I believe the usual view is that Eskimos and Inuits are dark-skinned because they get enough Vitamin D from fish and marine mammals, so they don't have the evolutionary pressure to get lighter in order to get the vitamin from the action of sunlight on a cholesterol-derived precursor. --Trovatore (talk) 01:01, 15 August 2014 (UTC)

And yet there are plenty of other Native American tribes that are darker than white people, but inhabited similar climates while not subsisting on primarily fish based diets. 69.121.131.137 (talk) 01:59, 15 August 2014 (UTC)

Examples? --Trovatore (talk) 02:09, 15 August 2014 (UTC)

Cree, Lakota, Sioux, Shoshone, Pawnee, dear goodness I'm tired of naming every mid-continent Native American and first nations ethnic group. --Jayron32 02:13, 15 August 2014 (UTC)

They occupied climates similar to those of the Eskimos??? --Trovatore (talk) 02:25, 15 August 2014 (UTC)

They occupied similar climates to white people from Europe. --Jayron32 02:36, 15 August 2014 (UTC)

He knows that, he strawmanned on purpose. I'm getting the feeling he's just trolling. 69.121.131.137 (talk) 02:37, 15 August 2014 (UTC)

Well yes, just like he pretends he doesn't know what other people mean when they say "Caucasian" just because he doesn't like the way most people use the word Caucasian. He thinks he can pretend that he doesn't understand what other people mean, and that somehow makes him morally superior because his definition of that word must be "right" and everyone else who uses it must be "wrong". --Jayron32 02:40, 15 August 2014 (UTC)

Is that like how you pretended you didn't understand me? I was talking about the usual hypothesis, as I understand it, as to why the Eskimos have not become lighter in spite of living in an environment with limited sunlight. I think that was clear enough. Why did you bring in Southerly populations? --Trovatore (talk) 02:50, 15 August 2014 (UTC)

You claimed that people who lived in Europe-like climates were dark skinned because they ate fish. Yet, there are people groups who didn't eat fish, and yet lived in Europe-like climates and are dark skinned. Shoots holes in that hypothesis, n'est ce pas? --Jayron32 03:00, 15 August 2014 (UTC)

The case in question was the Eskimos/Inuits. Note that they considerably predate the Plains Indians, and so whatever evolutionary pressure exists, they've been subject to it for longer. Actually I'm not sure about that part. Just the same, the sub-discussion in question was about the Eskimos/Inuits, not the Plains Indians. --Trovatore (talk) 03:16, 15 August 2014 (UTC)

That would be the Humpty Dumpty axiom. ←Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots→ 02:42, 15 August 2014 (UTC)

I'll put this here since it may be just too confusing to add it above. First, I'd like to point out that while it may be true many Jewish populations are more closely related to each other than they are to other the populations they were living with, this doesn't address the issue of their ancestary. In fact our article Genetic studies on Jews quotes Nicholas Wade "Ashkenazic and Sephardic Jews have roughly 30 percent European ancestry, with most of the rest from the Middle East." (Nicholas Wade is a controversial figure I know, but I'm not sure that this particular claim is that controversial. If it is, our article needs work.)

Also while the Y chromosome lineages seem to be relatively undisputed, the mitochondrial DNA lineages are more in dispute with some suggesting more European involvement. Of course these only tell us a little about the overall contributions to the autosomal DNA.

In any case, if you have a relatively small founder population as it appears you may have here, with fairly limited outside contribution, possible ancesteral averages are largely irrelevant. Even if it's true that the Middle Eastern population of their ancestors had relatively dark skin on average in comparison (which we don't really know since we only really know the current population trends, even with all the controversy over Jesus's skin colour etc, I don't know how much people have tried to estimate historic trends), this only at best enables us to come up with estimates for their specific ancestors.

In fact, if I'm understanding the above discussion correctly, the OP themselves and most other people agree that the average skin tone of the various Jewish populations under discussion can easily be found among modern day non Jewish Middle Easterners, they are just argued to not be the average.

All that being said, if from some random reason their small number of ancestors happened to be light skinned, it's not surprising if they stayed that way, particularly if the genetic pressures were pushing them there most of the time. (I'd also like to point out Middle Eastern is a fairly diverse range. Even given the possibly high level of mixing, it may still be more relevant to talk about those who lived in the areas the Jewish population arose rather than those from other areas.)

In terms of the wider genetic issue, the fact that some populations may not have seen such a high level of change in X number of generations doesn't rule out the possibility another population could have had a high level of change in X number of generation. If the source given by Marco polo (or better the source it references) is good, then it sounds like there is good evidence these changes can happen relatively quickly. The question of why it didn't happen in other populations is obviously an interesting one. But remember while this means we have to be careful in assuming it happened in any specific population just because it could happen (when we have evidence it doesn't always happen), it also means we have can't say it didn't happen.

[2] may provide some clues as to the possible factors at play. Offhand and from what I saw possibly supported by that source, reasons beyond diet that could discourage such changes include sexual selection, differences in clothing (climate which has multiple influences besides latitude may be a factor) and differences in the amount of time spent outside. In an extreme case, like with the Indian caste system, it's suggested that variance in the amount of time spent working outside may have reenforced or resulted in average differences in skin colour. While you wouldn't expect such extremeties in overall populations living by themselves like the Native Americans, there could still be differences related to life style. (And in the case of Jewish people who frequently weren't living by themselves, there could be various factors at play such as discrimination from those they were living with and the effect on their life style including jobs etc.)

Also, I should point out again AFAIK we're mostly thinking of modern day populations. I don't think our historic descriptions are likely to be that reliable and we do know a large percentage of the population was wiped out. While there's no particular reason I know of why darker populations are more likely to have have survived (beyond the possibility those with lighter skin tone may have been more likely to intermarry and so their descendans may generally no longer identify as Native American), I'm pretty sure we don't really know what their average skin tones were like pre-Columbus. (This is all assuming the claimed differences in average skin colour of current descendants of historic population in the various latitutes are correct.)

One final point, it sounds to me like the source Marco polo provided was referring to changes in the opposite direction i.e. a darker average skin colour. There could be a variety of reasons why this would happen faster.

Nil Einne (talk) 07:09, 15 August 2014 (UTC)

While looking for the published article behind Marco polo's source, I found [3] was linked and it discusses the issue of farming/agriculture which is relate to Trovatore's point but more diverse. Of course plenty of Native American populations did have agriculture. But it does discuss another factor namely the population bottle neck reducing the genetic diversity and therefore meaning changes to skin colour may take longer to happen (since you may need a new mutation rather than working solely on existing mutations). This is somewhat related to my earlier point. (It also relates to the "direction" thing. In particular, since we're pretty sure humans were originally fairly dark skinned and those with lighter skins are a later adaption, the initial light skin adaption may take a while to arise in populations where it never existed. But a change "back" to a darker skin may happen faster, depending somewhat on the level of diversity and intermarriage.)

While it may seem to rule out environmental factors given the low diversity, it's potentially more complicated than that. Even if the contribution of the populations they were living with are low, they are not AFAIK non existant so it's possible the contribution was enough that sufficiently advantageous alleles would quickly sweep through the population. (AFAIK the evidence suggests there was probably some minor outside contribution to native American populations like from the Vikings but it may be this was too little to take hold.)

Also, I wasn't able to find the research which supported the 100 generations claim. It may be it's not Nina Jablonski's research or simply that I missed it. A read of her books may be helpful or polite contact would probably work too. (I'm a bit confused whether the pleminary way thing refers to the 100 generations bit or not so looking at both books would be better.)

Nil Einne (talk) 07:54, 15 August 2014 (UTC)

Isn't also possible that the assumptions we are making about jewish origins are simply not true? How much do we really know about where Ashkenazi Jews came from anyway? It seems the earliest they can be dated back to is the Holy Roman Empire. Genetic studies found that Ashkenazi Jews have more in common with Sephardic Jews than they do with non-jewish Europeans, but that's typical of any endogamous group, and they have a gene that has a mutation in common with a mutation that middle easterners have. That's about it. 69.121.131.137 (talk) 11:21, 15 August 2014 (UTC)

What is the biggest current country with just no state (or just one state) and the smallest current country with more than one state?

What is the biggest current country with just one state and the smallest current country with more than one state?201.78.142.165 (talk) 13:14, 14 August 2014 (UTC)

What do you mean by state? A federated state, or any kind of first-level administrative subdivision? Minuscule Monaco, though one single municipality, is divided into 10 quartiers, though these are certainly not states. ---Sluzzelin talk 13:36, 14 August 2014 (UTC)

Not sure what you mean; only a relative handful of countries (the U.S., Australia, Mexico, India, and Brazil come to mind) are divided into units called "states". None of them has only one subdivision (which would defeat the point of subdivisions) as far as I know... AnonMoos (talk) 13:38, 14 August 2014 (UTC)

I don't know whether it occurs or not but you could have "only one subdivision" if a country had a semi-autonomous region that had responsibility for government at some level, with the rest of the country having just a single level of governance. That said I thing that OP probably meant countries with just a single level of governance (-- Q Chris (talk) 13:55, 14 August 2014 (UTC)

Uzbekistan is divided into one autonomous republic (Karakalpakstan) and other subdivisions which are not autonomous and not republics... AnonMoos (talk) 07:05, 15 August 2014 (UTC)

The biggest unitary state is the PRC. Roger (Dodger67) (talk) 14:02, 14 August 2014 (UTC)

[edit conflict] One way to interpret the question is that any nation-state that is a unitary state in effect has only one "state". These states' administrative subdivisions, like the counties of U.S. states, lack autonomous powers. The biggest unitary state, in both size and population, is China. It has nominally autonomous regions, but the powers of these are dictated by the central government. If the goal is to find the largest unitary state without so-called autonomous regions, the largest in area would be Kazakhstan and the largest in population would be the Democratic Republic of the Congo. The only state without any kind of geographic administrative subdivision, to my knowledge, is the Vatican City. The smallest federal state (i.e., a nation-state with more than one semi-autonomous constituent unit or "state") is Saint Kitts and Nevis. Marco polo (talk) 14:20, 14 August 2014 (UTC)

didnt knew this stuff would be so complex to answer. Anyway OP here, on biggest country with no state (or just one state), assume biggest country without second level subdvision (and if this is not possible countries with just one first level subdivision). On smallest country with more than one state, assume the smallest country that has more than one first level subdivision, where all first level subdivisions have at least one second level subdivision201.78.142.165 (talk) 16:38, 14 August 2014 (UTC)

I think Marco polo has already answered "biggest country with no state", Vatican City. Nil Einne (talk) 17:56, 14 August 2014 (UTC)

Except that the OP now wants to know the biggest country with first-level subdivisions but no second-level subdivisions, as well as the smallest country with both first and second-level subdivisions. Answering this question would take more time than I have available, but the OP could do it by going to our articles List of countries by population or List of countries by area, depending on what he or she means by "biggest" and "smallest". The OP could then work his or her way down from the top of the list, clicking on the article for each country, until he or she reaches the largest country with first-level but no second-level subdivisions. He or she could work his or her way up from the bottom of that list to find the smallest country with both first- and second-level subdivisions. I don't think this particular question has been asked before, and it is kind of trivial, so the only solution to it, failing a suitable database, is brute force. Marco polo (talk) 18:09, 14 August 2014 (UTC)

I thought the "second level" bit for the biggest country with a typo (note the OP didn't say anything about the first level). Otherwise, this would mean if all US/Indian/Brazilian/whatever states decided to eliminate all their subdivisions which may be dumb but doesn't matter for our purpose, the they would suddenly be be countries without no states, despite having states with constitutionally defined powers. That also first with the "not possible" bit and the wording of the earlier question. Nil Einne (talk) 18:48, 14 August 2014 (UTC)

Yes if brazil as some example decided that cities not exist anymore forever, people would live in stats and not cities. So some guy that would say that he lives on brasil, Sao paolo, Sao Paolo. Would say he lives on Brasil, Sao paolo. Someone that say that he lives in minas gerais, Aimores. Would say he lives on Brazil, Minas Gerais. In the end its a city. So they would fit.201.78.142.165 (talk) 19:55, 14 August 2014 (UTC)

(EC) As for "smallest country with more than one state", I think either San Marino, Tuvalu or Nauru.

San Marino definitely seems to fit your definition of country with more than one state since from what I can tell, each municipalities/castelli has at least one parishes/curacies (well definitely at least 3 had at least one curacies). I presume these curacies have some sort of administrative subdivision function as do the castelli.

Tuvalu I'm less sure. They have "Local government districts" and villages. I presume the local goverment districts have some sort of administrative subdivision function, but I'm not certain the villages do although it depends somewhat what you mean by administrative subdivision function. (For example if the village has their own representative to something does that count? In any case, it's likely that there would be some recognition of the different villages & their views being sought at times. Note also at these small levels, it could be each household has some degree of more direct influence.). Nauru is a fairly similar case but on one island.

Re Tuvalu, it might be considered relevant that it has sometimes issued postage stamps specific in name and illustrative design to each of its several inhabited islands. These were all fully valid for international postage, but (ObPersonal alert) of course it was really a ploy to issue many extra postage stamps with different designs for collectors: so-called "philatelic issues". I know this because I worked for the UK Philatelic Agents responsible for designing and producing the stamps for the Tuvalu Philatelic Bureau, and myself decided the subject matter and researched pictorial references for many of the sets thus issued. {The poster formerly known as 87.81.230.195} 212.95.237.92 (talk) 13:53, 15 August 2014 (UTC)

Monaco has administrative divisions but from what I can tell per our article, they are unitary. They are divided in to city blocks (îlots) which our article says are equivalent to census divisions so I presume these are not really administrative subdivisions. P.S. Our article mentions Quartiers in some places, but from what I can tell, these have no current adminstrative basis and instead arise out of the historic and other divisions.

Nil Einne (talk) 18:29, 14 August 2014 (UTC)

BTW, I should clarify I was mostly thinking in terms of land area or total area (both are same for this) per List of countries and dependencies by area i.e. for total area including all lakes, rivers etc but not coastal waters (let alone EEZ). If you mean by population, per List of countries by population, you would need to check out Palau if you rule out Nauru and Tuvalu. (And presuming you agree with San Marino, Monaco becomes irrelevant.) Of course, I'm also assuming you're using a similar definition of country as our articles, which currently excludes Niue for example (this one only matters for the population basis but I don't know if there are others you could easily argue are a country but which our article doesn't consider one). -- 18:56, 15 August 2014 Nil Einne

Andrés López Rayón Asimismo

Who is this Andrés López Rayón Asimismo? My search yielded basically nothing (neither web nor Google books), even though he was honored on that monument. Appears to be related to the Mexican war of independence. Maybe an error? Brandmeister^talk 17:22, 14 August 2014 (UTC)

Other sites [4][5] say it is Ignacio López Rayón. "Asimismo" means "also" or "as well".--Cam (talk) 18:13, 14 August 2014 (UTC)

Here is a newspaper article with a direct quote from the sculptor saying it is Ignacio López Rayón.--Cam (talk) 18:41, 14 August 2014 (UTC)

Michael Brown

This article talks about unrest caused by USA police having killed black person Michael Brown on sight, without arresting or sentencing him, and without him provoking or threatening them in any way. Now this is the first time I've heard about this Michael Brown incident. Does anyone know what exactly provoked the police to killing him on sight? I honestly can't believe a USA police officer would just kill black people on sight just because they happen to be black. JIP | Talk 19:30, 14 August 2014 (UTC)

Have you looked at other English-language news sources for more information? The events in Ferguson, Missouri are among the top news stories in the U.S. at the moment.--Cam (talk) 19:49, 14 August 2014 (UTC)

Well, there is a lot of misinformation and speculation going on. This is breaking and ongoing news, something that WP in general and refdesks in particular are not well suited to. To start, we have Shooting_of_Michael_Brown, though of course WP itself is not a WP:RS for current news. To my knowledge, the police have not yet interviewed key witnesses, though journalists have. Here are some reports from the purported eye witness [6] [7]. Though the original killing was troubling, there is also considerable concern about the ongoing events: claims of police using tear gas on, and arresting journalists, as reported here [8] [9]. Please keep a skeptical mind when reading any news accounts, and try to read from several sources. Some people have a strong vested interest in claiming the police were justified, and likewise some people believe this was straight up murder. As for the general context, institutional racism is being claimed as a root cause by many observers, journalists, and commentators [10]. I also would ask other responders to not share their personal opinions on the matter, but to feel free to share information from news sources. We can all read along and come to our own conclusions without WP:SOAPboxing here. SemanticMantis (talk) 20:00, 14 August 2014 (UTC)

I was just about to do that. Thanks for the reminder. I think I know what happened, and can probably source most of it. If not, I'll just move along. InedibleHulk (talk) 20:16, 14 August 2014 (UTC)

Yes, I myself had typed up several things which were probably sympatico with your conclusions, but decided to cut them out, not wanting to engage in WP:SYNTH. For a situation like this, I think it's best to keep our reference hats on ;) At the same time, we don't all read all the same news, and I'm sure your links will be of interest. SemanticMantis (talk) 20:20, 14 August 2014 (UTC)

Don't be too sure. I'm leaning toward away from this one. On an unrelated note, did you know Google autocompletes "Dial M for" in five ways? Monkey, Murdoch, Mother, Mountie and Mayor. InedibleHulk (talk) 20:30, 14 August 2014 (UTC)

The police are in serious "pulling the wagons into a circle" mode at present. Someone took some video, but unfortunately it was after the shooting. ←Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots→ 20:40, 14 August 2014 (UTC)

The Washington Post has an interesting article on how the police should respond (which I've read). It starts with a brief discussion of what happened, and several links (which I haven't read) to sources detailing what happened. From what WP article, it seems that there has been on-going resentment in Ferguson (90% Afro-Caribbean) about the how they are policed (the force is 90% Caucasian), including too many random stop-and-searches. The shooting of Mr Brown might have been the straw that broke the camel's back. CS Miller (talk) 21:00, 14 August 2014 (UTC)

If "Afro-Caribbean" means "black", that article puts the citizenry at 67%, and the police at "more than" 90% white. InedibleHulk (talk) 19:19, 16 August 2014 (UTC)

I don't think anyone really knows for sure what happened, and eyewitness accounts are notoriously unreliable.[11] A Quest For Knowledge (talk) 02:28, 17 August 2014 (UTC)

I agree that memory is sketchier than we'd like to believe, but to be fair, your link deals with testimony in the trial stage. That comes a while after the fact, with plenty of time for revision. The eyewitness who filmed the cop covering his still-bleeding corpse may have been lying or mistaken, but she shouldn't have forgotten much by then. InedibleHulk (talk) 20:25, 17 August 2014 (UTC)

Non-living food

Were there historically (or are there) any groups of people who advocated eating only non-living food (that is neither meat nor plants), instead relying on dairy products, baked food (pastries) and, possibly, fruit/vegetable juices?--93.174.25.12 (talk) 21:56, 14 August 2014 (UTC)

Baked food typically comes from wheat. Also, milk is plants cycled through a cow's internal processes. ←Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots→ 22:03, 14 August 2014 (UTC)

I don't think there could be any food that wasn't alive at some point in time. Even if someone could survive eating sand, after a while all the sand would have been part of a living creature and thus forbidden. Still, given Veganism and Fruitarianism exist, probably someone must have taken it to the extreme ideal of "lifelessianism". Breatharians seem to do well without any food at all. Joepnl (talk) 22:50, 14 August 2014 (UTC)

First came the breadless sandwich. Then the foodless sandwich. They say food is an important part of a balanced diet, but I'm not so sure anymore ... -- Jack of Oz ^{[pleasantries]} 04:20, 15 August 2014 (UTC)

Then there's the "wish" sandwich. ←Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots→ 04:31, 15 August 2014 (UTC)

Jain vegetarianism may be of interest. It involves eating foods whose procurement and preparation don't harm any living thing. All food that I can think of was once part of a living organism, though.--Wikimedes (talk) 05:08, 15 August 2014 (UTC)

Geophagy is fairly common in poor countries, where people can't get a proper balance of nutrients from plants alone - for anyone who can afford a balanced diet, eating soil or clay is usually either pica (which is classified as a mental disorder) or a silly celebrity fad. Whether clay, eaten for say its iron content, constitutes "food" is a dictionary problem. Naturally, man cannot live on rocks alone. 87.115.180.61 (talk) 09:51, 15 August 2014 (UTC)

I think some of these responses are a bit hard on the questioner. There is a logical distinction between the consumption of fruits and seeds (including grains), which are not part of a currently living plant, and consumption that requires the death of the plant consumed. I'm not aware of anyone who makes that distinction in practice, although Jain vegetarianism comes close. John M Baker (talk) 13:56, 15 August 2014 (UTC)

There were a few individuals within groups of monks who lost weight (and gained immortality, sort of) through the sokushinbutsu diet (though even that consists of meager plant material). InedibleHulk (talk) 21:18, 15 August 2014 (UTC)

Alex Young

Can anybody help me identified who the figure between Damon and Dole is in this picture? It seems to say Alex Young but there was no such person who served in the Republic of Hawaii's cabinet. He might be a secretary or clerk. Also anybody have an idea who the unidentified woman is? --KAVEBEAR (talk) 22:03, 14 August 2014 (UTC)

See: Alexander Young (engineer). According to that article: "After the 1893 overthrow of the Kingdom of Hawaii, he served on an advisory council for the provisional Government of Hawaii. From October 27, 1899 to May 18, 1900 he served as Minister of the Interior until the Territory of Hawaii government was established".

No idea on the woman. Blueboar (talk) 01:50, 15 August 2014 (UTC)

Ministry of the Interior (Hawaii) left him out so I thought he wasn't in the cabinet. This must have been taken after James A. King's death then.--KAVEBEAR (talk) 02:26, 15 August 2014 (UTC)

The woman appears to writing on pad on her knee. As she is sitting closer to Cooper than the rest of the group, she could be his secretary. CS Miller (talk) 10:30, 15 August 2014 (UTC)