Wikipedia:Reference desk/Archives/Humanities/2011 September 15

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September 15

Official residence of the Premier of Ontario

What is the official residence of the Premier of Ontario? — Preceding unsigned comment added by 65.92.152.54 (talk) 01:21, 15 September 2011 (UTC)

Ontario. ←Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots→ 01:22, 15 September 2011 (UTC)

I'm not seeing anything in Google nor in wikipedia's article on official residences. Do you know for sure that the Premier of Ontario even has an official residence? ←Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots→ 01:29, 15 September 2011 (UTC)

The contact form for the Ontario government is online at https://www.ontario.ca/en/contacts/feedback/index.htm Presumably, someone who answers questions there may know. --Jayron32 01:38, 15 September 2011 (UTC)

Apparently not. According to this blogger, the Ontario Liberal Party bought a house for Dalton McGuinty to rent (at a below-market rate). Clarityfiend (talk) 01:51, 15 September 2011 (UTC)

US-Israel relations

Answered question turning into debate

Why does the US unconditionally support everything Israel does? --75.60.15.28 (talk) 02:03, 15 September 2011 (UTC) Because it doesn't. --Jayron32 02:12, 15 September 2011 (UTC) We weren't too crazy about the Jonathan Pollard situation, for example. ←Baseball Bugs What's up, Doc? carrots→ 02:17, 15 September 2011 (UTC) Additionally, relations were a bit tense during the Clinton Administration, which was quite critical at times of Israel's settlement policies, which the Clinton Administration saw as unneccessarily antagonistic and did not lead to a peaceful Two-state solution. --Jayron32 02:20, 15 September 2011 (UTC) Israel has been the middle eastern country most friendly toward the US, and with good reason. How many times has the US used its Security Council veto in favor of Israel, when otherwise there would have been Council action contrary to the interests of Israel? How many billion dollars a year does the US give to Israel, and what is the total since 1948? How loudly did the US protest the Israeli "accidental" attack on the USS Liberty, and how hard did the US government work to silence the ship's surviving crewmembers from discussing or writing about the incident? Edison (talk) 03:35, 15 September 2011 (UTC)

Israel – United States relations: Whoa, what's that? A reference, on the reference desk?? That's crazy talk. How about a couple more? Here you go. Want some opinion pieces on why this is? More than enough of those. Here's a pretty good one pretty relevant to this topic [1]. Buddy431 (talk) 04:08, 15 September 2011 (UTC)

Negroponte doctrine... AnonMoos (talk) 16:47, 15 September 2011 (UTC)

There are some interesting recent articles about the U.S. promising to veto Palestine's application for recognition as a nation to the UN security council [2]. The one I linked has some of the background to this situation. Buddy431 (talk) 03:40, 17 September 2011 (UTC)

Conservative and Liberal places of Bangladesh.

I read the Pabna article that Pabna is conservative because it has been a political stronghold of Jamaat e Islami and BNP. Is there other places of Bangladesh that are conservative in terms of religion or being political stronghold of Jamaat and BNP? What about places that are liberal due to being political stronghold of Awami League?

The article on the Bangladeshi general election, 2008 breaks down each party's seats by region, which makes clear where some party's strongholds lie. The majority of the BNP's seats are in Chittagong, with Rajshahi the other area where they are fairly strong. Jamaat only hold seats in Chittagong. The Awami League hold almost all the seats in Dhaka, and are weakest in Chittagong and Rajshahi. Warofdreams talk 15:13, 15 September 2011 (UTC)

However, I think we shouldn't overestimate the ideological cleavage between BNP and Awami League (BNP isn't really a conservative party, Awami League isn't a liberal party by any standards). They are both catch-all populists. The two parties have different areas of influence due to historical reasons. Jamaat, on the other hand, is a different issue. An area with high Jamaat vote could probably be labelled 'conservative' (in the sense of being non-secular). --Soman (talk) 14:05, 17 September 2011 (UTC)

Fasces

How common was it to use two axes in the construction of the traditional Roman fasces? Did it then have a "winged" appearance?--Doug Coldwell ^talk 12:37, 15 September 2011 (UTC)

Well... seeing as I can't find any, not common at all. LOL. The older Etruscan/Greek fasces incorporated a labrys, a woodcutting double axe which gives it a winged appearance. Romans also used a double headed axe (bipennis) for woodcutting, though it was far larger and had a wooden handle unlike the labrys. Roman woodcutting axes seem to be overwhelmingly single-bladed however, and depictions of fascia utilize one-bladed axes (secūrēs). The only instances where I can find two fascia crossing each other are in post-Roman Empire heraldry (which also seems to often use a telltale battleaxe instead of woodcutting axes) and I can not find anything on a single fasces with two axes.-- Obsidi♠n Soul 14:51, 15 September 2011 (UTC)

O.K., thanks.--Doug Coldwell ^talk 11:26, 16 September 2011 (UTC)

The world a thousand years ago

If we knew say in the year 1000 what we do now, could the people who lived back then have had the same kind of society that we have now with the infrastructure and internet etc? What im asking i guess is have these things always had the potential to exist but we've only recently discovered how to utilise them? --Thanks, Hadseys 13:22, 15 September 2011 (UTC)

Innovations interacted with other innovations to get us to the point we are at now. Sudden possession of 1,000 years worth of knowledge would probably lead to a different set of circumstances. The incremental nature of change cannot be overlooked. By the way, it's a hard question to answer, because I don't think it is narrowly-enough-focussed. But I obviously find it interesting nevertheless. Bus stop (talk) 13:33, 15 September 2011 (UTC)

Do you mean you individually, or society as a whole? If it is just you individually, you would find that a lot of the needed infrastructure to make what you know how to build is missing. I mean look at something simple like a bicycle. You should be able to invent that right? But with the tools a supplies you would have back in 1000AD, you would have a rough time. You will not have rubber for the tires, so you will need to use something else which will give a rougher ride, less traction and weigh more. You will not have aluminum or even tubular steel for the frame, so your bicycle will be rather heavy, and take a fair amount of time to fashion, either from solid iron or from wood. Moving parts will be tricky, because you will have to build them within decent tolerances with the tools on hand. Even if those trade offs are acceptable, roads at the time would not be in any condition for you to ride around very well. That is not to say that a knowledgeable individual from today would not be able to make some improvements, just don't expect airplanes, the internet and cellphones within his lifetime. Googlemeister (talk) 13:44, 15 September 2011 (UTC)

Various works of fiction have themes of people with advanced knowledge of technology finding themselves in [largely] low tech worlds, either because they've gone back in time or because they're living in a post-apocalyptic world. My favourite of this ilk, although not quite right for your description is Day of the Triffids. I've not read it for years, but I thin A Connecticut Yankee in King Arthur's Court may be what you're describing - although I guess the tech is some way off 2011 levels! Various Dr Who storylines have used the idea, too. I'd guess it's fairly common. --Dweller (talk) 15:21, 15 September 2011 (UTC)

Back to the Future attempts to deal with the subject somewhat, though admittedly not 1,000 years ago. IIRC, the Doc manages to build a new time machine using contemporary components. --KägeTorä - (影虎) (TALK) 15:31, 15 September 2011 (UTC)

A British TV comedy sketch has an ordinary 21st century man transported back to the laboratory of Michael Faraday. When Faraday asks about modern inventions, the modern man suggests cars. "How do they work?" "Erm, you put petrol in them." "What is petrol?" - he doesn't really know. "Mobile phones?" "How do they work?" He doesn't know either. I might do better explaining an internal combustion engine, but I don't think I'd be an awful lot more useful in the past. Alansplodge (talk) 16:53, 15 September 2011 (UTC)

Me again; you can see it here - sorry, it doesn't quite follow my script... Alansplodge (talk) 17:04, 15 September 2011 (UTC)

Don't forget societal resistance to change ("burn the witch!"). Other SF novels include L. Sprague de Camp's Lest Darkness Fall and Leo Frankowski's Conrad Stargard series (heavy on the engineering). Clarityfiend (talk) 20:50, 15 September 2011 (UTC)

Yes, everything we have now could have been created earlier, if we had the technology. It couldn't have been created instantly though, as many intermediate steps need to be achieved first. I'm not sure how much more quickly we could go through the intermediate steps, maybe a few hundred years ? Note that one problem is that our technology might well outpace our social development. That still might be the case in the modern world, where we've developed nuclear weapons before we ended warfare, but at least we have world-wide trade and the United Nations, which tend to limit to scale of wars. Without those, we might have had a global nuclear war long ago. StuRat (talk) 17:03, 15 September 2011 (UTC)

??? How do you know it is the UN and worldwide trade that limits the scale of wars rather then nuclear weapons? Googlemeister (talk) 18:38, 15 September 2011 (UTC)

If only the threat of nuclear retaliation stopped wars, then that would leave open many wars where one of the two parties lacked nuclear weapons. StuRat (talk) 04:04, 16 September 2011 (UTC)

The question is interesting. Obviously if today's knowledge just suddenly appeared in the year 1000, it would take a long time to "spin up" the infrastructure that we take for granted today, what with digging mines and oil wells, creating all those laboratories, building all those cell phone towers, farming all that coca. Another interesting aspect is that our article world population estimates says that there were around 300 million humans on Earth in the year 1000, which is under 5% of what we have today — so in order to give everybody a cell phone, we wouldn't need quite so much germanium, for example, so it may be that 300 million humans could live in a way indistinguishable from the way we live today, but with a much smaller infrastructure that could be built faster than ours was. Fewer mouths to feed. Another twist: Europeans would not have visited the New World yet; many animal species that are extinct today could be saved and several entire human civilizations, as well, if some precautions were taken. Comet Tuttle (talk) 23:14, 15 September 2011 (UTC)

(ec) The New World was not only discovered but was colonised around AD 985 by Erik the Red.
Sleigh (talk) 12:30, 17 September 2011 (UTC)

There's another problem with the scenario of the time-traveler that brings unknown technology. Sooner or later, he goes away, or dies. And what then? One by one, the computers in Ancient Rome begin to malfunction. Perhaps they could manage to understand the basic concepts of the Desktop metaphor (which is designed so that people does not need to know how does a computer work in the mechanical level), but without the time traveler, who will provide tech support? Who will have the slightest idea of what to do inside the computer case? Who will produce new components and computers? Cambalachero (talk) 00:53, 17 September 2011 (UTC)

Transaccions in the ballpark of billions

Can they be really hidden? Aren't rough traders just a lame excuse for speculation and loss of billions?Quest09 (talk) 15:19, 15 September 2011 (UTC)

Banks have internal checks that are supposed to make wild speculation by a given trader visible to the bank's management, in whose interest it obviously is to stem losses before they reach such outrageous levels. The meat of Nick Leeson's conviction was that he had resorted to deceit and forgery to conceal his losses. The underlying problem in that case was that his employers really didn't properly understand how their business worked and had pitifully bad internal checks to make sure that everything was working properly. For things to get this bad requires someone to go rogue, but also requires an institutional failure. -- Finlay McWalterჷTalk 16:12, 15 September 2011 (UTC)

This current BBC article, BBC Q&A: How do rogue traders do it?, probably prompted by the same incident you have in mind, directly addresses the question. {The poster formerly known as 87.81.230.195} 90.200.79.217 (talk) 16:36, 15 September 2011 (UTC)

Another article prompted by the same incident 90.200 mentions (and I guess was the catalyst for the OP) mentions [3]:

Louise Cooper, markets analyst at BGC Partners, said the arrest will call UBS's risk management into question and an unexpected trading loss could do "significant reputational damage" to the bank.

She said: "Rich people tend not to want to do business with a bank where there are questions over risk control.

"UBS needs to do a good job in explaining what went wrong and assuring its clients that it will not affect them."

Which supports what FW mentioned. On the other hand, I've heard it suggest for NL and possibly others that one of the common reasons for the problems in the institutions is they don't care as long as the rogue trader appears to be making money which perhaps partially relates to what the OP is thinking of.

Nil Einne (talk) 17:10, 15 September 2011 (UTC)

Yes, the recent UBS incident prompted my question, although they are not alone. It seems pretty straightforward to check the whereabout of 1bn, since you just need a fraction of that to track it down. Quest09 (talk) 20:24, 15 September 2011 (UTC)

historical fiction

I know there are some works of fiction out there that portray a person from a more modern time traveling to the past and living there. Are there many works for the opposite, where a person from the past comes into present days? I want to specify that it is only for people of the past coming to the present, not people from the present going to the future. Googlemeister (talk) 15:26, 15 September 2011 (UTC)

Not exactly what you want, but I once read a story by an author called Simak, called 'The Goblin Reservation', which was about a world in the future where time travel was normal, and people (and all sorts of now-extinct animals and mythical creatures) from our past were living in this future world, basically for the purpose of being studied. Entertaining read, and the main plot actually had nothing to do with time travel. --KägeTorä - (影虎) (TALK) 15:37, 15 September 2011 (UTC)

Les Visiteurs, Encino Man, Catweazle, and many at TV Tropes "Fish out of temporal water department. -- Finlay McWalterჷTalk 15:58, 15 September 2011 (UTC)

The Navigator: A Medieval Odyssey -- Finlay McWalterჷTalk 16:01, 15 September 2011 (UTC)

In TV sci-fi, we have Star Trek: The Next Generation, where the fictional character Professor Moriarty is brought from our past in our future. In the Stargate SG-1 series, the mostly fictional character Merlin is brought from our past into our present. StuRat (talk) 16:21, 15 September 2011 (UTC)

There is also Lost in Austen, where the main character - a lady from modern-day London - finds herself swapping places with one of the main characters from Pride and Prejudice, Elizabeth Bennet, who ends up staying in modern London (and is followed by Darcy later on). Fictional characters, but still from the past. --KägeTorä - (影虎) (TALK) 16:33, 15 September 2011 (UTC)

A TV example (if that counts) from my 1960s childhood, Adam Adamant Lives!, and from 1970s children's TV, Catweazle. Alansplodge (talk) 16:39, 15 September 2011 (UTC)

Rip van Winkle. ←Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots→ 17:36, 15 September 2011 (UTC)

As something of a contrast to most of the above, you might consider the novel Brother Petroc's Return (1937) by "S.M.C." (Sister Mary Catherine), about a 16th century Cornish monk who, having apparently died and been entombed, is discovered in a state of suspended animation and revived around the date of the book's publication. It is not, however, easy to find. {The poster formerly known as 87.81.230.195} 90.197.66.32 (talk) 22:12, 15 September 2011 (UTC)

Time After Time, in which H.G. Wells really did make a time machine; Jack the Ripper uses it to come to the present (well, 1979), and Wells comes here too, to chase him. Wells is disappointed that 1979 isn't a socialist utopia, but does enjoy McDonalds french fries. Comet Tuttle (talk) 22:58, 15 September 2011 (UTC)

He also enjoys Mary Steenburgen. ←Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots→ 23:13, 15 September 2011 (UTC)

As does Jack the Ripper. I don't think I disclosed any surprises there. Comet Tuttle (talk) 23:16, 15 September 2011 (UTC)

You mean like the way they dispatched Jack by... Oh, I'd better not spoil it. :) One thing, though, is that Malcom and Mary carried their on-screen romance off-screen for awhile. ←Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots→ 23:25, 15 September 2011 (UTC)

Isaac Asimov's The Ugly Little Boy.-- Obsidi♠n Soul 23:01, 15 September 2011 (UTC)

In Argentina we have the comic book Gilgamesh the immortal. It is about a sumerian king who arrives to modern day the old fashioned way: being immortal. Of course, from Sumeria to modern day, and everything in the way here: ancient Egypt, ancient Greece, ancient Rome, Jesus, medieval ages, crusades, colonization of the americas, napoleonic wars, WWI, WWII, and so on... Cambalachero (talk) 23:28, 15 September 2011 (UTC)

In Philip José Farmer's multiple-novel Riverworld series, every human who has ever lived is reincarnated on the eponymous planet simultaneously, but this may be straying from what the OP is looking for. {The poster formerly known as 87.81.230.195} 90.197.66.32 (talk) 02:53, 16 September 2011 (UTC)

There was an original Twilight Zone episode where a man about to be hung for his crimes in the Wild West is transported into the "present" (around 1960). Homicide ensues.

In another episode, a man from a wagon train is transported into the present where he finds medicine for his sick son. StuRat (talk) 03:59, 16 September 2011 (UTC)

I can't believe no one (even Bugs!!!) mentioned Field of Dreams, where an entire baseball team comes from the past into the present. --Jayron32 14:49, 16 September 2011 (UTC)

Is my face red, or what? Although those were the ghosts of deceased players, which is perhaps a bit different. And I did find it puzzling that Joe inquired about the lights, given that night baseball had been around for 25 years or so when he died. ←Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots→ 14:59, 16 September 2011 (UTC)

The Centurion's Empire, where a Roman centurion uses a hibernation technique to sleep for centuries at a time. ---— Gadget850 (Ed) ^talk 19:16, 16 September 2011 (UTC)

The late Kage Baker developed this premise extensively in The Company series of novels and stories. Some characters are pre-homo sapiens and it goes through the present into the 24th C, sometimes in the same volume, in Old World and New World locales. Highly recommended; watch for the use of chocolate. -- Deborahjay (talk) 08:03, 17 September 2011 (UTC)

UK riots - types of conviction

Hi,

I've been reading this article: http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-14931987 about the offences that the perpetrators of last month's riots in the UK have been convicted for. They've mostly been sent down for burglary and violent disorder. There is, however, a statutory offence of riot, created by the Public Order Act 1986. But nobody seems to have been charged with that specific offence - always with "connected" offences like burglary. Does anyone know why this is? As far as I know, the Public Order Act 1986 is still very much in force. And it seems to fit the circumstances. Why aren't the relevant parts being applied?

--Privyet (talk) 21:15, 15 September 2011 (UTC)

Most of those convicted so far are those who've pleaded guilty early in the process. I believe that's because there's good (probably video) evidence of someone taking stuff from a shop or chucking a brick at a police van. So the CPS are going to be tempted to charge them with the pretty undeniable stuff, knowing the courts will take the circumstances into account and give out a harsher sentence than a simple burglary or brick throw, and call that a success. Getting a conviction for riot sounds like a more nuanced case, one they'd need more than video evidence for, and perhaps evidence about a given person's conduct over more than just a single instant of criminality. The act talks about "common purpose" and says "The common purpose may be inferred from conduct"; that's clearly a case the CPS can make, but it's likely one they'd have to argue at some length in court (and a defence might be "my client just showed up, chucked a brick, and ran off - he didn't know any of the other people there, and wasn't acting in common purpose with them"). You'd think that the more serious cases, where a charge of riot would be appropriate, will still be bubbling through the system - if a defendant chooses to contest a charge, it can take at least 6 months (probably more, with courts and prosecutors so busy) before it comes to trial. And given the very hefty terms for riot (up to 10 years) it's a great motivator for anyone charged with that to defend it actively, and at least try to plea down to a lesser charge. So I think you will see a few people come to trial for the more serious crimes you mention, but they've not come to court yet. -- Finlay McWalterჷTalk 21:32, 15 September 2011 (UTC)

What will happen if the same thing occurs in the U.S. if all defendants request their jury trials? Certainly many of them end up pleading guilty to save money. Most cases are never tried by the jury (all facts are known and undisputed from the video) but what will happen if they choose not to plead guilty? What did they do in the 1960s? -- Toytoy (talk) 03:01, 16 September 2011 (UTC)

As in earlier times, they picked some political prisoners to blame it on. I assume Britain will do the same. Wnt (talk) 03:12, 16 September 2011 (UTC)

UN's legal capacity

UN Security Council mediator Count Folke Bernadotte and Observer André Serot were murdered on September 17, 1948 by Israeli agents. Later, UN passed General Assembly Resolution 258(III) to bring the case to the International Court of Justice to decide whether the UN has legal capacity to have an advisory opinion regarding reparation for injuries suffered by UN workers.

• http://daccess-ods.un.org/access.nsf/Get?OpenAgent&DS=A/RES/258(III)&Lang=E&Area=RESOLUTION
• http://www.jstor.org/stable/1284789

Does Wikipedia have an article for this ICJ opinion? -- Toytoy (talk) 23:49, 15 September 2011 (UTC)

Our article on Bernadotte says he was killed by the Stern Gang, a terrorist organization. -- Mwalcoff (talk) 00:41, 16 September 2011 (UTC)

Yes he was killed by the Zionist terrorist group Lehi and none of the murderers was punished for killing a peace-loving man who have saved hundreds of Jews from Adolf Hitler. However, without first consulting the ICJ, the UN's legal standing was not clear at that time. The ICJ's opinion granted the UN legal personality. It's, in fact, a textbook case to allow the UN to go to the ICJ. -- Toytoy (talk) 02:35, 16 September 2011 (UTC)

Huh? The Lehis were an extremist terrorist group, not Israeli agents. In fact, they were forcibly disbanded by the Israeli government, if I remember correctly, by having most of them arrested. As the article says though, they were granted amnesty (usually a good idea in most situations to do so if you keep tabs on them). The UN though only has as much power as its member states choose to grant it, and that is mostly only that power granted by UNSC members (more specifically the permanents).

Out of curiosity, is this in relation to Turkey saying they're going to take Israel to the ICJ? I read that that can only happen if both nations agree to arbitration by the ICJ and then the UN takes the decision under advisement, but there;s nothing the ICJ itself can actually do. I could be wrong though, I'm no expert. Sir William Matthew Flinders Petrie | ^{Say Shalom!} 02:45, 16 September 2011 (UTC)

A related case is the ICJ's ruling on the illegality of the Israeli West Bank security barrier. This was brought to the ICJ following a ruling of the UN General Assembly despite Israeli opposition. (See Israeli_West_Bank_barrier#United_Nations_and_International_Court_of_Justice and BBC.)--Colapeninsula (talk) 09:13, 16 September 2011 (UTC)