Wikipedia:Reference desk/Archives/Humanities/2009 November 19

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November 19

Regulation D

Regulation D originally read that savings accounts are allowed only 6 withdrawals per month, excluding branch, ATM, and bank-by-mail transactions. Third-party based transactions (e.g., debit card transactions, ACH, or money market checks) were limited to 3 per month. However, I am nearly sure that the Regulation was amended so that it was 6 per month regardless of the receiving party - I know this because I work very closely with a financial institution. However, I can find nothing on the internet in order to update Wikipedia. Is my financial institution misquoting federal rules (unlikely), or why is this not more widely published? How can I find something to source my changes? Magog the Ogre (talk) 01:58, 19 November 2009 (UTC)

You were, I think, linking to the wrong Regulation D (concerning the SEC and registration of securities); see Savings account, instead. (I've just added a disambiguating hatnote to the top of the Reg. D article.) If you Google the relevant section of the Code of Federal Regulations —12 CFR 204, 12 CFR 204.2, 12 CFR 204.2(d) and/or 12 CFR 204.2(d)(2)— you'll find a host of texts and legal interpretations of those texts by the Federal Reserve Board and the Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation. (I presume that at one point, the Federal Savings and Loan Insurance Corporation and the National Credit Union Administration also had a hand in promulgating, interpreting and enforcing those rules.) If you want to follow the relevant changes, I think you might be able to find them in the version of the CFR at the Government Printing Office on-line site, e.g. at CHAPTER II--FEDERAL RESERVE SYSTEM PART 204--RESERVE REQUIREMENTS OF DEPOSITORY INSTITUTIONS (REGULATION D) and the foot of the page at 204.2 Definitions), and also perhaps at the sites of the House and Senate Banking Committees (http://financialservices.house.gov/ and http://banking.senate.gov/public/ ) —— Shakescene (talk) 06:40, 19 November 2009 (UTC)

One Flew over the Cuckoo's Nest - Criticism of Liberalism?

How does the the book version of One Flew over the Cuckoo's Nest criticize political liberalism, exemplified by FDR's New Deal and Johnson's Great Society?

This is a question for homework that I can't seem to figure out. Any help would be appreciated. 71.206.65.5 (talk) 02:43, 19 November 2009 (UTC)

Did you read the articles on New Deal and Great Society and Liberalism in the United States? You need to understand what those programs and political paradigms mean first. Then, once you understand what they mean, you need to find examples in Kesey's book which put such ideas in a negative light. --Jayron32 02:50, 19 November 2009 (UTC)

The New Deal is a collection of welfare programs passed by the United States government to combat the effects of the Great Depression. This ideal is derived from Keynesian Economic philosophy that government investment in an economy is the only way to bring a nation from a recession or depression.

The Great Society programs were efforts by the Johnson administration to correct such social ills as poverty and lack of medical insurance. The most far-reaching program enacted during this time is Medicare.

Am I correct? 71.206.65.5 (talk) 02:56, 19 November 2009 (UTC)

Sounds about right... --Jayron32 03:23, 19 November 2009 (UTC)

Where is this Liberalism criticized though? I'm having trouble finding the textual evidence of this. 71.206.65.5 (talk) 03:40, 19 November 2009 (UTC)

I haven't read the book in 15 years, presumably you have just read it. Kesey isn't going to come out and say "THe New Deal and the Great Society were bad!". Look for places in the book where government programs are the source of bad things happening. American Liberalism has, at its core, the idea that government programs can help the disadvantaged. Thus, a work of literature which is critical of that would show where a government program actually HURTS rather than helps the disadvantaged. Again, given that I read the book long ago, and no longer have a copy at my finger tips, I can't cite a specific passage. But one may be able to make the case that the government-run assylum's main problem was that it was government-run, and that a private business, controlled by the free market, would not have seen the abuses that the assylum in the book did. I am not advocating that this is a correct assessment of the book, nor am I saying that was Kesey's intent in writing the book the way he did, I am just saying that one could make a case that this was how it worked, based on the VERY LEADING way the homework question was asked. (incidentally, its a shitty homework question, since it gives you the opinion it wants to to advance in itself. Rather than asking a more general "What political criticism does the book make" It basically says "Liberalism is evil, and the book proves that. Show me how". Shitty question. But c'est la vie. You still need to answer it to get the grade). --Jayron32 03:54, 19 November 2009 (UTC)

How is Nurse Ratched other than a fascist? If she were a liberal she would be "sensitive" and "understanding" and "empowering" of the "differently abled," and "tolerant of different beliefs," while never acting despotic. Edison (talk) 05:23, 19 November 2009 (UTC)

On the contrary, one could claim that Nurse Ratched is the benevolent, all-powerful government who knows better what the individual wants than the individual does themselves. She acts to save the individual from themselves for the collective good of all people. Such analysis would mime the Objectivist (in a Randian sense) criticism of a "American liberal" society; i.e. powerful government programs are needed to save people from themselves, the government knows best, etc. etc. for the record, I don't believe that arguement myself. The point is, given any position at all on any topic, it is quite easy to argue any position textually. You just have to use obfuscatory language and be a good bullshit artist --Jayron32 05:58, 19 November 2009 (UTC)

Her attempts to restrict people's freedom is equally well associated with conservatism. ←Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots→ 06:05, 19 November 2009 (UTC)

I thought it was about a mean old nurse who wouldn't let her patients listen to the World Series on the radio. :( ←Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots→ 05:27, 19 November 2009 (UTC)

The question brings up the New Deal and the Great Society, which are (modern) liberal economic policies, rather than liberal social policy, and the two don't necessarily have to go together. I think it would be tough to argue the book is a criticism of social progressivism, since it seems like the exact opposite at least from what I remember. When I read it I didn't really take anything away about economics or the size of government, but maybe there's a way to construe it that way like what Jayron said. Rckrone (talk) 06:44, 19 November 2009 (UTC)

Let's not forget post-structuralist criticisms of psychiatry. While I don't think post-marxists are typically considered bedfellows of libertarians, Foucault might be one of those exceptions, at least in that context. And let's not forget that keeping an amphibious rodent inside the city limits...that ain't legal either. Shadowjams (talk) 07:11, 19 November 2009 (UTC)

The most famous anti-modern-psychiatry voice (other than Scientologists!) is R. D. Laing... AnonMoos (talk) 14:19, 20 November 2009 (UTC)

Residency and public records

I noticed some inconsistencies with the residency locations listed for some people in public records search websites (e.g. USSearch, Intelius) vs. their last residences as listed by the Social Security Death Index. Specifically, the "last residence" listed in the SSDI doesn't even show up as a place of residence in the person's public records on the aforementioned websites. How can this be explained? 128.2.251.62 (talk) 06:19, 19 November 2009 (UTC)

I believe that is the address of the person who received the death benefit, not an address of the deceased. 75.41.110.200 (talk) 14:08, 19 November 2009 (UTC)

Just Compensation in Kelo v. City of New London

I was wondering how much Kelo et alumni were compensated by the city of New London; if possible I would like a link to a reputable source with the answer as well. Thanks! Crisco 1492 (talk) 09:42, 19 November 2009 (UTC)

This is surprisingly difficult to discover! --Sean 14:09, 19 November 2009 (UTC)

Sometimes settlements are offered under the condition that the recipient may not disclose the amount. Likewise, city employees who are privy to this knowledge may be told to keep it under wraps. The motive would be to keep others from knowing how much they might get if they sought a similar settlement. Marco polo (talk) 15:28, 19 November 2009 (UTC)

You may be able to find more information using the Pacer system. Personally, I have not used it. I heard that the final disposition can be obtained through this system. I am sorry but I have no idea whether the system is public or a commercial legal service. As others have stated, it may be impossible to find the settlement figures. I did some work reviewing Kelo. The U.S. Supreme Court's opinion is not as draconian as most people think. Any state can pass legislation blocking the use of eminent domain for urban renewal purposes. Many states have taken advantage of the invitation from the Supreme Court.75Janice (talk) 21:46, 19 November 2009 (UTC)75Janice

Thanks for the help, I've had a doozy of a time myself. I am working under the assumption that it was market value (as is standard, per case law) but... Oh yes, I am outside the US so using PACER would be extremely burdensome (and expensive). Crisco 1492 (talk) 00:43, 20 November 2009 (UTC)

Fair exchange between buyer and seller - so how come some people accumulate wealth?

Buying and selling is based on the fair exchange between willing people where the worth of the goods sold equals the worth of the money paid. A symetrical, equal relationship. But how come some people get wealthy out of these transactions? Have any academic studies been made listing the ways in which what seems like a fair exchange has a hidden part to it where one of the pair gets more out of it than the other? Answers like "Economics" or "Marxism" would be too general to be useful. Thanks 78.144.197.46 (talk) 11:14, 19 November 2009 (UTC)

If you write/invent/develop/discover something and sell it, value has been created and converted into another form. The exchange may be fair for the people implicated in it, and you might get wealthy (depending on what you write/invent/develop/discover). Mr.K. (talk) 11:35, 19 November 2009 (UTC)

The key problem is your definitions. You should read into people like John Rawls and Social contract theory and the links there-in. Basically 'fair' is not the same as 'equal' (when you think logically it's obviously not). So just because 2 people have a 'fair' transaction doesn't mean that one (well, actually both) don't benefit. If it costs me £20 in materials to make a wooden rocking horse and I put it for sale at £100, if you are happy to pay that then it is a 'fair' transaction. You've got what you wanted (a rocking horse) and i've got what I wanted (money). The extra £80 is created. You might also be interest in Gift exchange (hope an article exists) in particular in the philosophy of gift-exchange and the 'creation' of wealth. Ultimately both people benfit from a 'fair' sale - profit is not a sign of inequality between buyer and seller - though obviously there are problems such as monopolies etc. 194.221.133.226 (talk) 11:57, 19 November 2009 (UTC)

In addition to having a high profit margin per transaction, it's also important to have as many transactions as possible. Let's take the example of two identical singers. One does weddings, and is paid well, lets say $1000 per wedding, and does one wedding a week. The other records her songs, and sells a million albums. Even if she only gets $1 per album, that's still a million dollars, while her twin would take 20 years to earn that. Some occupations can benefit more from this multiplicative effect than others. A nurse, for example, can't easily care for millions of people at once, so there aren't many nurses who are millionaires. An actor, on the other hand, can entertain millions of people at once (via movies and TV), so there are many actors who are millionaires. StuRat (talk) 14:51, 19 November 2009 (UTC)

A most excellent example, StuRat. Tan | 39 14:53, 19 November 2009 (UTC)

Thanks ! StuRat (talk) 18:49, 20 November 2009 (UTC)

The other classic example would be the retailer who buys a loaf of bread from a baker for a dollar -fair exchange since the baker has a thousand loaves and can only eat so much - and sells it to a housewife for three dollars - fair exchange since the housewife is hungry and can't get to the bakery. DJ Clayworth (talk) 15:47, 19 November 2009 (UTC)

I believe the key point being missed is that wealth does not have equal value to everyone. A wealthy person who makes an especial effort to become wealthy obviously has some emotional attachment to coins and bills, while the Dalai Lama would probably not be all that enthusiastic if he found a solid gold coin on the ground. Who knows though. The bottom line is that money has great psychological appeal to certain people, and they do things that help them accrue it in ridiculously large amounts. It's sort of a disease, although it's very unpopular to say that sort of thing in today's money-hungry climate. Vranak (talk) 17:06, 19 November 2009 (UTC)

Are there any ways of getting seriously wealthy that do not involve selling a product to many people (the mass market perhaps), as suggested above? Or is this essential? 78.146.97.208 (talk) 21:20, 19 November 2009 (UTC)

If you have something to sell that's of a very high value to somebody, then you only have to sell it once. For example, if you know the location of Osama bin Laden, you could sell that info for millions. Or you can just win the lottery or go the gold-digger route. StuRat (talk) 23:55, 19 November 2009 (UTC)

Robbing a bank may enable you to become seriously wealthy without selling anything, but it has its risks. Nyttend (talk) 01:53, 20 November 2009 (UTC)

See Category:Ethically disputed business practices, Anti-competitive practices, Business ethics, Bribery, Corporate crime, Corporate behaviour, Political corruption,Patent infringement, Pollution, Superfund.Embezzlement, Cronyism, Bait and switch, Trojan horse (business), Teaser rate, Enron scandal, Bernard Madoff. Merchants who get rich may not be conducting a "fair exchange" on each transaction. Sharp business practices may involve slight, still legal misrepresentation, and gulling of the gullible. Get other investors to put their money at risk while you manage, so that if it fails the loss is theirs but if it succeeds the gain is yours. Give money to politicians so you get no-bid contracts. By the same means, get favorable legislation which aids you and hurts your competitors. Restrict the market available to the supplier. Coerce the supplier into building a new factory to supply your promised large demand, then threaten to cut orders unless the price is reduced. Get the town to forgo property taxes on a new store in a "blighted" area by bribing city councilmen, reduce competition by getting the same city to drag its feet on granting building permission to competitors, or restricting liquor sales only to stores above a certain size (which definition just fits the particular merchant's store), get a state grant for improvements which make the venue more accessible.Get the government to use eminent domain to acquire someone's property at a below market price for your commercial use. Hire illegal immigrants, or have what amount to slaves imported from a third world country. Use union busting techniques to hold workers to low pay levels and minimum benefits. Blanket TV with ads so that simpletons assume the products convey fictitious benefits (eat this bread and you will be slim, rub this water on your forehead and headaches will go away, use this lotion and you will look young and beautiful, drive this car and girls will be attracted to you, buy this MAC computer and you will look cool like the guy with cool clothes and a cool haircut, not be a geek like the guy standing in front of the PC; take this cruise and the ship will be full of beautiful people like the actors in the commercial rather than ones with sagging old bodies like the viewer's, take all this medicine to be healthy, while ignoring the dire side-effects. Cut costs by speeding up meat processing lines until gut contents are spilled into ground beef, then selling thousands of tons of ground beef containing E coli. Bribe legislators to reduce inspections and safety regulations. Dump toxic waste. Do not honor warranties.Do not provide useful customer service. Do not do adequate quality control. Merchants who do none of the above may find themselves unable to compete with the ones who do. Edison (talk) 17:47, 20 November 2009 (UTC)

In gist: markets only work when government is sufficiently powerful to enforce individual rights, but not so powerful that the overwhelmingly best strategy for competition is to bribe the government. Tricky, that. --71.146.7.39 (talk) 18:15, 20 November 2009 (UTC)

Years ago, a corporate official told a TV reporter that his responsibility was to his shareholders, not the public and not the workers; that he saw his responsibility was to pollute by dumping toxic chemicals into a lake unless and until the penalties were so severe as to reduce the economic advantage of doing so. Edison (talk) 18:19, 20 November 2009 (UTC)

Well, his honesty is refreshing, if not his attitude towards the environment (or a dip in the nearby lake), although he failed to account for the cost of the negative PR (and the inevitable campaign showing happy children playing in the lake, right before they hose them off with clean water and treat their chemical burns). The question, then, is why we have such tiny fines that continuing to pollute remains profitable. My answer: lobbying by polluters. StuRat (talk) 18:45, 20 November 2009 (UTC)

The UK recently changed the law so a company's management are allowed to take the environment (among other things) into account in addition to making profit for their shareholders. It used to be that they were legally obliged to make concentrate purely on maximising profits and that is probably still the case in a lot of jurisdictions. --Tango (talk) 23:29, 20 November 2009 (UTC)

I don't think profit per se is the problem, it's the focus on short-term profits rather than long-term that's at issue. Polluting is likely to have few short-term consequences, whereas, in the long term, the "chickens come home to roost", meaning fines, bad PR, and lawsuits accumulate and politicians get elected who are more hostile to their business interests. How to stop this focus on short-term profits ? Well, this basically comes from the stockholders, so change the tax system to charge prohibitively high rates for short term gains and low (or no) taxes for long-term capital gains. This will cause stockholders to demand long-term growth from their companies, even at the cost of short-term losses (like, say, buying environmentally friendly waste handling systems), which in turn means responsible environmental policies. StuRat (talk) 13:34, 21 November 2009 (UTC)

A simple explanation is this. You sell fruit, you sell me $20 worth of fruit, I give you $20. Equal trade. Next I take that fruit and either do something, or do nothing and I consider it worth $30, someone else does as well. I sell the fruit at a fair price to you. I now have $10 that I earned from either improving fruit, or simply from performing two transactions, both considered fair by all sides. Chris M. (talk) 18:57, 24 November 2009 (UTC)

economics

forecast cannot better than the data it is derived from. discuss analytically —Preceding unsigned comment added by Mayakos (talk • contribs) 12:01, 19 November 2009 (UTC)

I agree with both of your statements. Meanwhile, please note that we don't do your homework for you. --Dweller (talk) 12:05, 19 November 2009 (UTC)

I recommend an open-minded perusal of Garbage In, Garbage Out, which looks like it's relevant only to IT professionals, but is really applicable to anyone trying to analyse anything. --Dweller (talk) 12:08, 19 November 2009 (UTC)

It's not always true. For instance statistics provides a way sometimes to extract gold from dross. It's just a sysing which works as a good policy. Dmcq (talk) 15:08, 19 November 2009 (UTC)

That gold tends not to be all that convincing, though. If the signal is that much smaller than the noise then, while you might be able to extract it, but it would probably be better to redo the experiment and eliminate some of that noise. --Tango (talk) 18:17, 19 November 2009 (UTC)

Yes, that's why RADAR never took off. 78.146.30.105 (talk) 19:58, 21 November 2009 (UTC)

Coughing

I just returned from the funeral that was attended by 300.000. or more people and I noticed a very interesting thing. In the pauses between speeches and the service, when one person coughs, people around him start coughing as well, and since its funeral and its quiet, you can here literally hundered and thousands of people coughing. And it happened every time when there was a short pause, someone would cough and its like a chain-reaction, everyone starts coughing. Not loud coughs, but more like clearing their throats. Is there an explanation for this phenomenom, is it a psychological thing? I cant find nothing on it on the internet. Thanks.

p.s. sorry for bad english! СССССС (talk) 12:10, 19 November 2009 (UTC)

I don't have any scientific information on the subject, but from my own experience I would imagine it would be mainly because someone hearing a cough is kind of reminded to consider whether his/her own throat is in need of any relief at that moment.

By the way, yawning is even more contagious than coughing, and people can often be induced to yawn just by seeing an animal yawn... AnonMoos (talk) 13:17, 19 November 2009 (UTC)

Better than that - reading the word 'yawn' can make people yawn. It's a rather odd little reaction. Hopefully our Yawning article has links off to research as i'm at work so can't provide any myself 14:57, 19 November 2009 (UTC) —Preceding unsigned comment added by 194.221.133.226 (talk)

I'd say they were able to keep themselves from coughing during the speech, where it would be disruptive, so held the cough until it was over, instead. StuRat (talk) 14:33, 19 November 2009 (UTC)

Plus, once one person coughs and breaks the silence, it's okay for others to do it as well. ~ Amory (u • t • c) 14:38, 19 November 2009 (UTC)

So what would happen if one person farts ? StuRat (talk) 15:19, 19 November 2009 (UTC)

I just yawend. Anyway, when one baby crys all others start to do this as well, probably they don't want him the take all the attention from them. So it's basically a very reflexive retarded nature of human beings: mimicking, you can build on it entire culture-and you can't mostly do this without it (!) As for StuRat question, it this case all others around will blame each other, plug their noses (including the one "in charge") and run away for a safer place.--Gilisa (talk) 15:52, 19 November 2009 (UTC)

Whose funeral was this, that had 300 000 people? Adam Bishop (talk) 17:50, 19 November 2009 (UTC)

I think it's meant to be read as a decimal point (300.000). It's a case of a rather unnecessary (and in this case, absurd) degree of specificity. -- JackofOz (talk) 19:16, 19 November 2009 (UTC)

Perhaps, but in such a case, the precision is valid as I do not expect to see 0.14 people ever. Googlemeister (talk) 19:18, 19 November 2009 (UTC)

Sometimes the deceased is represented by remains constituting 0.14 of the original person. Edison (talk) 19:58, 19 November 2009 (UTC)

In which case there would be a closed casket and we would not see that at all. Googlemeister (talk) 21:15, 19 November 2009 (UTC)

No, no, no; periods (full stops) are used in many languages (e.g. French) to separate thousands where English-speakers usually use commas (and often the opposite, using a comma where we'd use a decimal point). That's why international scientific usage tends to favour blank spaces between thousands. Check nearly any archived page of Wikipedia talk:Manual of Style (dates and numbers) for truly exhaustive, heavily-referenced, discussions of this point (or should I say comma?) 300.000 above is not an overly-precise number, but an extremely-general one (one significant digit), i.e. three hundred thousand. —— Shakescene (talk) 20:04, 19 November 2009 (UTC)

I remember experiencing the same phenomenon at the last funeral that I attended. One thing to consider is the silence of such a ceremony. In a gathering of that many people you will inevitably have many that will cough...but you may not notice it if the group was talking or attending a concert or show. (cough, cough!) cheers, 10draftsdeep (talk) 21:32, 19 November 2009 (UTC)

Yes I'm surprised people aren't aware of that although decimal separator may be a more relevant since it's an article. Anyway considering there aren't that many funerals worldwide which such a large number of people attending I would guess this was the funeral of Patriarch Pavle of Serbia which according to [1] had 500k (police estimates) attending. And of course, it's hardly surprising that some attending the funeral would be used to the comma as a thousand seperator since it's used in Serbia and most non English speaking European countries. So fits in with most information we have Nil Einne (talk) 08:41, 20 November 2009 (UTC)

Furthermore, once someone has coughed, it gives a sort of social permission for other people to do so. One person coughing is a distraction, but if you sneak yours in straight away, it isn't as distracting as if you try to hold it in and be the only person coughing later. Steewi (talk) 23:21, 19 November 2009 (UTC)

This doesn't answer the question, but it's fascinating nonetheless. This is Sergei Rachmaninoff describing his experience of playing his Corelli Variations (in a letter to Nikolai Medtner, 21 December 1931):

"I've played the Corelli Variations about fifteen times, but of these fifteen performances only one was good. The others were sloppy. I can't play my own compositions! And it's so boring! Not once have I played these all in continuity. I was guided by the coughing of the audience. Whenever the coughing would increase, I would skip the next variation. Whenever there was no coughing, I would play them in the proper order. In one concert, I don't remember where - some small town - the coughing was so violent that I played only ten variations (out of 20). My best record was set in New York, where I played 18 variations. However, I hope that you will play all of them, and won't 'cough'". -- JackofOz (talk) 10:19, 20 November 2009 (UTC)

Yes, it was the funeral of Patriarch Pavle of Serbia and now they say it was 500,000, or 600,000, people. And yes, we use full stops instead of commas (like I said, sorry for bad english:)) I forgot that I should use commas when writing in english. Thanks for your answers СССССС (talk) 12:17, 20 November 2009 (UTC)

At a funeral, a speaker's silence may follow some moment of great emotion. Men do not generally like to cry out loud, and a cough is sometimes a substitute. Edison (talk) 17:29, 20 November 2009 (UTC)

Presidential Middle Names

I was making a list of the middle names of the U.S. President and I noticed that our articles on them rarely list a middle name. Only in cases where it was popular (ie: John Quincy Adams) did they list one. Do most Presidents not have middle names or is it just that we don't put them in the article because it isn't popular to do so? -- kainaw™ 17:59, 19 November 2009 (UTC)

Well most people in general don't go by their middle names, so it's no surprise that presidents would follow the same trend. People like Mary Tyler Moore do it because they think it sounds better. As for presidents, Harry Truman is the only on not to have a middle name, and he adopted the letter S to make up for it. JQA was known to distinguish himself from his father, John Adams, similar to why there is George H. W. Bush and George W. Bush. ~ Amory (u • t • c) 18:42, 19 November 2009 (UTC)

See the page Wikipedia:Naming conventions, which states that we prefer common names and names which users are more likely to search. As you say, in most cases presidents are not known by their middle names, so the names of articles on presidents should not include those middle names. That said, it would be fair to have a redirect to the main page for a president from the form of his name that includes his middle name. Furthermore, I think that it would be fine to open the article with the person's full name. This is precisely what our article Bill Clinton does. Bill Clinton is the name of the article, but it begins William Jefferson "Bill" Clinton. If you find articles that do not open with a president's middle name, you should feel free to add it. Likewise, you could add any missing redirects. Understand, however, that not every president had a middle name. Middle names were considered optional before the mid-1800s or so, and there were certainly presidents other than Harry Truman who lacked middle names. Marco polo (talk) 18:51, 19 November 2009 (UTC)

Thanks. As I pointed out below, I am wondering why the missing names particularly applies to Presidents. I thought there may be a reason. -- kainaw™ 22:16, 19 November 2009 (UTC)

There seem to be as many opinions about Harry's "S." as he had hot breakfasts. But our article says it was given to him by his parents at the time he was named; it was not a case of him adopting it later in life. -- JackofOz (talk) 19:11, 19 November 2009 (UTC)

Full names are generally bolded in the opening sentence of Wikipedia biographies. Try looking for middle names among the signers of the Declaration of Independence. Is there a pattern? Why would John Quincy Adams have been given a middle name? Why that one? In what way was John Quincy Adams' middle name "popular"? In your list did you leave out "Van" in Martin Van Buren? Do you know why? according to your list, when did middle names become usual among ordinary Americans? Check your conclusions with a list of Vice Presidents of the United States?--Wetman (talk) 19:27, 19 November 2009 (UTC)

There's actually a Sporcle quiz about Presidential middle names (which, through too much time wasted on trivia, I aced). But it will remind you of the presidents whose middle name is very-well-known, but whose first name is obscure, such as Thomas Woodrow Wilson and John Calvin Coolidge. Often, the middle initial is well known, and sometimes the name is better known with the initial than without it, while the full middle name is very little-known, as with James K. Polk, Ulysses S. Grant and (arguably) James A. Garfield. (And Grant was born Hiram Grant.) Franklin Roosevelt is probably the least-used form of his name after Franklin D. Roosevelt, FDR and Franklin Delano Roosevelt. Similarly, simple John Kennedy is far less-used than John F. Kennedy, JFK and John Fitzgerald Kennedy. —— Shakescene (talk) 19:50, 19 November 2009 (UTC)

Assassins of notable people seems to be well known by all three names: Lee Harvey Oswald, John Wilkes Booth, James Earl Ray. Only at the inauguration did we hear "George Herbert Walker Bush," intoned by the oath giver. Edison (talk) 19:57, 19 November 2009 (UTC)

In the case of assassins and other famous no-goodniks, the use of the middle name in identifying them in public is deliberate. It lessens the risk of an innocent John Booth or Lee Oswald in middle America being thought of by his neighbors as the President's assassin. You can add Mark David Chapman, John Wayne Gacy and John W. Hinckley to the list. --Xuxl (talk) 20:26, 19 November 2009 (UTC)

But that seems to be a particularly American custom. Every other country has its murderers, but they're generally referred to by the name they used in their lifetimes: e.g. Martin Bryant, Ivan Milat, John Bellingham, Ian Brady and Myra Hindley. -- JackofOz (talk) 20:39, 19 November 2009 (UTC)

It seems to be a particularly American thing to use your middle initial e.g John F. Kennedy, Robert E. Lee and so on. In the UK (and the Commonwealth too?), it's more usual to either use initials alone e.g. T. E. Lawrence, W. H. Auden; or to just use the first name e.g. Margaret Thatcher, Horatio Nelson. The only exception I can think of is Winston S. Churchill; but then he had an Amercan mother. Alansplodge (talk) 21:08, 19 November 2009 (UTC)

And Churchill is rarely mentioned using his middle intial, at least in the US. —Akrabbim^talk 21:24, 19 November 2009 (UTC)

I have never seen Churchill called that in the UK either. He's either Churchill, Winston Churchill, or (rarely) Winston Spencer Churchill. Algebraist 21:33, 19 November 2009 (UTC)

He had an agreement with the other Winston Churchill (the American novelist) that he would publish under "Winston S. Churchill", because the American guy was published earlier, and had no middle name with which to disambiguate himself. -- 202.142.129.66 (talk) 02:23, 20 November 2009 (UTC)

After reading all of these replies, I do not see why an article about a President would purposely avoid mentioning his middle name in any way. For example, see Brad Pitt. The article is titled "Brad Pitt", but the content states his full name. See James Dean. The article is titled "James Dean", but the content states his full name. See Thomas Jefferson - no middle name. See James Madison - no middle name. I am pointing out that in the limited articles about people that I've read, I noticed that people who have not been Presidents of the U.S. tend to have their full name in the article. Those who have been Presidents of the U.S. tend to avoid displaying the full name. Why? Claiming that they didn't use their middle name is not, in my opinion, a valid answer. Brad Pitt never went by William. He was Bradley until he went to High School. James Dean never went by Byron either. I hope I've made my question a little clearer. This is about the editors of Wikipedia, not about the Presidents choice of a personal name. -- kainaw™ 22:13, 19 November 2009 (UTC)

I meant to also point out that I think Marco Polo was closest to an answer by saying middle names were optional before mid-1800. I wonder if "optional" should be rephrased as "rare". -- kainaw™ 22:24, 19 November 2009 (UTC)

Yes, middle names in the early republic were uncommon. Washington, Adams, Jefferson, Madison, etc., didn't have middle names, like most of their contemporaries. Even as late as Lincoln, sometimes people didn't have them. I doubt if there is any Wikipedia article on a president of the US that has a middle name omitted if the guy had one. If you don't see one, there wasn't one. —Kevin Myers 22:28, 19 November 2009 (UTC)

Thanks. That is what I was looking for. -- kainaw™ 22:58, 19 November 2009 (UTC)

Although Lincoln was the last President without a middle name or initial, as recently as my generation, the lack of a middle name is not uncommon among the public. ←Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots→ 05:08, 20 November 2009 (UTC)

I do hope that Wetman was kidding about the 8th president, as Van Buren was his family name. B00P (talk) 05:01, 20 November 2009 (UTC)

So it wasn't Martin "Van" Buren? As an aside, someone told me about helping lost Asian tourists whose Asian-printed Chicago guidebook listed some attraction as being on "Buren" street, rather than "Van Buren." Edison (talk) 05:39, 22 November 2009 (UTC)

Are there any states or countries where the seat of government is not in that state or country?

20.137.18.50 (talk) 19:38, 19 November 2009 (UTC)

I do not know of any cases in which a capital was located outside the jurisdiction it governed, but there have been many Government in exile. In most of these cases though, the official seat of government is in the country proper, it's just that the government is forced by circumstances to meet elsewhere. --Xuxl (talk) 20:31, 19 November 2009 (UTC)

West Berlin comes close. Wrad (talk) 20:35, 19 November 2009 (UTC)

No, the capital and the seat of the government were Bonn until 1990. Also, West Berlin was a part of Germany, it was just an exclave. Regards SoWhy 20:41, 19 November 2009 (UTC)

There are no countries whose seat of government is not in that country. However, there are subdivisions of countries whose seats of government are outside their borders. Two examples are the states of Haryana and Punjab in India. The seat of government for both states is in Chandigarh, which is part of neither state. Another such case is the county of Surrey in England, whose seat of government in Kingston upon Thames is not part of that county administratively. This is the case for several English counties, such as Leicestershire, Derbyshire, and Nottinghamshire, whose seats of government were historically part of those counties but are now administratively separate. The same is true for many counties in the U.S. state of Virginia. Marco polo (talk) 20:48, 19 November 2009 (UTC)

Depending on who you talk to, Israel's capital, Jerusalem, is not part of Israel. See Positions on Jerusalem. 216.142.208.222 (talk) 21:04, 19 November 2009 (UTC)

216, It's realy not a matter of your opinion or any other political opinion, Jerusalem is under the sovereignty of Israel. So de facto, Jerusalem is in Israel, no matter who acknowledge it and who doesn't. It's the historical capital of the Jewish people, and it would remain so unless something very very dramatic will happened.--Gilisa (talk) 08:56, 20 November 2009 (UTC)

And, correspondingly, Palestinians don't consider their capital to be Ramallah but East Jerusalem (the part of Jerusalem which was Jordanian territory from 1948 until 1967). The status and future of Jerusalem is one of the three hardest roadblocks to an Israeli-Palestinian peace agreement. —— Shakescene (talk) 05:09, 20 November 2009 (UTC)

The other two of course being "The Israelis" and "The Palestinians". Matt Deres (talk) 05:26, 21 November 2009 (UTC)

Between the world wars, Vilnius was part of Poland, but Lithuania claimed it as its official capital under Polish occupation. The de facto seat of government and "temporary capital of Lithuania" was in Kaunas. — Kpalion^(talk) 21:59, 19 November 2009 (UTC)

While not they're not states or countries, you may be interested in Lake and Peninsula Borough, Alaska, Shannon County, South Dakota, and Todd County, South Dakota. King Salmon is the borough seat for Lake and Peninsula Borough, but it's located in the adjacent Bristol Bay Borough; Hot Springs in the adjacent Fall River County is the county seat for Shannon County; and Winner in the adjacent Tripp County is the county seat for Todd County. Nyttend (talk) 01:49, 20 November 2009 (UTC)

The Bechuanaland Protectorate, which became Botswana in 1966, was administered from Mafeking, South Africa. Botswana's capital is now Gaborone (Gaberones). —— Shakescene (talk) 05:01, 20 November 2009 (UTC)

I always thought "Bechuanaland Airport" would have worked well in an Abbott and Costello routine. Edison (talk) 05:35, 22 November 2009 (UTC)

In Virginia there are several independent cities which are officially not part of any county, but are still county seats for the county that surrounds them. For example, the city of Fairfax, Virginia is officially the county seat of Fairfax County, Virginia, but it is not part of Fairfax County. --Jayron32 05:15, 20 November 2009 (UTC)

Most of the Commonwealth realms have a head of state (Queen Elizabeth II) who lives outside the country. But their respective capitals are in the country in each case, and the formal duties of the queen are normally performed by a governor-general who lives there. --Anonymous, 06:01 UTC, November 20/09.

Are there any states or countries where the seat of government is in that state or country, but the citizens of the seat of government cannot vote in the elections for that state or country? --84.61.142.120 (talk) 18:04, 20 November 2009 (UTC)

That was true of the people of the Australian Capital Territory for many years. The seat of government was Canberra from 1927, but the ACT had no representation in the Parliament of Australia till 1949, and even then, while the Member could participate in any debates, he could vote only on matters directly affecting the territory, until around the late 1960s. The ACT did not get its first Senate representation till 1975.-- JackofOz (talk) 18:58, 20 November 2009 (UTC)

Similarly Washington, DC still has no U.S. Senate representation and their representation in the U.S. House of Representatives "is not allowed to vote on the floor of the House, but can vote on procedural matters and in House committees" and they couldn't vote for the President until the passing of the Twenty-third Amendment to the United States Constitution in 1961. This is discussed in District of Columbia voting rights. N.B. To the OP, is there any reason you repeated your question twice? It's not necessary to do so, if people have more answers they will provide them. Nil Einne (talk) 21:09, 20 November 2009 (UTC)

Are there any other states or countries where the seat of government is in that state or country, but the citizens of the seat of government cannot vote in the elections for that state or country? --84.61.142.120 (talk) 19:20, 20 November 2009 (UTC)

In the U.S. state of Virginia, several counties have their county seats in politically separate enclaves: e.g. Fairfax County, Virginia has its county seat in the City of Fairfax; Henry County's seat is Martinsville, Virginia. —D. Monack ^talk 08:22, 23 November 2009 (UTC)

• Wikipedia has an article to answer the original question: List of capitals outside the territories they serve. --Metropolitan90 (talk) 10:28, 23 November 2009 (UTC)

Can diplomatic bags be sniffed?

The Vienna Convention on Diplomatic Relations prohibits the host country from opening or X-raying diplomatic bags. Can they still be sniffed by detection dogs and subject to other non-imaging inspections? On a related note, have Internet connections ever been claimed as diplomatic bags where the host country monitored or firewalled Internet access? NeonMerlin 19:57, 19 November 2009 (UTC)

The text of the treaty says only "The diplomatic bag shall not be opened or detained." It does not mention X-raying (which wasn't in common use in 1961). FiggyBee (talk) 14:01, 20 November 2009 (UTC)

I don't know if diplomatic bags were used in these cases [2] but if they were then the answer to the first question is I guess yes Nil Einne (talk) 21:13, 20 November 2009 (UTC)

Maybe they could but there wouldn't be much of a point since even if a police dog barks like crazy at a diplomatic bag because he smells explosives or cocaine, the host country could do nothing about it. —D. Monack ^talk 08:26, 23 November 2009 (UTC)

They couldn't investigate the package further (without permission), but they could communicate their concerns to the mission or government concerned. While the convention requires hosts not to interfere with the diplomatic bag, it also requires missions not to do anything illegal or otherwise dodgy with them. In the case Nil Einne mentions, I don't think the luggage of a visiting politician would be considered diplomatic traffic; the diplomatic bag is reserved for the communications of the embassy. FiggyBee (talk) 09:29, 23 November 2009 (UTC)

I remember hearing stories some time ago of how host governments with suspicions about a certain shipment of diplomatic bags would, oopsa-daisy, carelessly carefully allow them to fall off a loading truck at the airport. But that is hearsay. So I googled "diplomatic bag" "fell off" and found this paper, including the intriguing phrase "The crate fell off a forklift truck":

   * Insuring against Abuse of Diplomatic Immunity
   * Leslie Shirin Farhangi
   * Stanford Law Review, Vol. 38, No. 6 (Jul., 1986), pp. 1517-1547
     (article consists of 31 pages)
   * Published by: Stanford Law Review
   * Stable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/1228786

If you want to pursue this, perhaps more recent work on the subject cites this paper, and you can follow the trail. BrainyBabe (talk) 11:12, 24 November 2009 (UTC)

Maritimes (Nova Scotia, PEI, New Brunswick) Article

How come the "History" section ends with the 19th-century? If anyone has gathered enough information to give a summary of the region past the 19th century and to the present, please do so. Most of the information can probably be derived from wikipedia articles on each province in the region, but it would probably be convenient for a lot of users to have all that historical information on one page. Thanks. —Preceding unsigned comment added by Bull-Moose Forever (talk • contribs) 20:41, 19 November 2009 (UTC)

Wikipedia is the encyclopedia that anyone can edit. Since you feel that those changes would improve the article (and I agree with you), I encourage you to make those changes. Marco polo (talk) 20:44, 19 November 2009 (UTC)

Whatever happened to Learning Machines?

In the sixties or seventies, something that was believed to be a foretaste of the future was the Learning- or Teaching-machine. These were optical-mechanical-electrical devices (as far as I recall) which the student would sit in front of, view the material on a small screen, and press a choice of buttons to answer questions. If you got the answer right you moved on to the next section, if you got it wrong the machine gave remedial instruction. At the time it was expected that these would replace teachers. But obviously it has not. There does not seem to be a Wikipedia article about them. What happened to them, why did they not take over education as expected? Despite computers now being commonplace and easily useable as this type of Learning Machine, education almost never uses them for this purpose. 78.146.97.208 (talk) 21:37, 19 November 2009 (UTC)

I know that there are some subscription-based websites that offer this sort of thing in maths. Many schools subscribe and use them in a variety of ways with their students. However, they are not ideal in that they are very based on reading/watching a given explanation and answering very narrow questions. They are useful for some topics, and particularly when they have some novelty value for the children, but they don't replace good teaching. 86.142.231.220 (talk) 22:27, 19 November 2009 (UTC)

There's a little bit at B. F. Skinner#Teaching_machine, but the original 1960's ideas were unfortunately overall extremely simplistic (yet another among dozens of educational-theory fads which have come and gone without producing dramatic lasting results)... AnonMoos (talk) 22:42, 19 November 2009 (UTC)

I'd say that such tools have their place, especially with a computer that has a more adaptive program ("this student isn't learning the material through reading, so let's try visuals instead"). However, most students will also need a human involved to praise them when they do well and get on their case if they don't (it just doesn't work, at least for older kids, if a computer does it). StuRat (talk) 23:45, 19 November 2009 (UTC)

Specific machines don't exist for it because general computers are so widespread. There are certainly computer programs that do that. They usually aren't used for all of a child's teaching, just for small portions or to reinforce things also taught by other means. There hasn't been a program written that rivals a good teacher - that would require artificial intelligence far beyond what we have. --Tango (talk) 04:50, 20 November 2009 (UTC)

See or article Programmed learning. I found it very useful for learning basic factual materials, like how electronics circuits work, math, statistical analysis or Medical terminology. Present text material, quiz on comprehension, branch to remedial or additional explanatory material if the student doesn't "get" it, then proceed to the next topic. The article could use expansion and improvement. Google Books has 2532 listings for programmed learning. It is "learner based" because the sequence of material presented is not dictated by the interests or presuppositions of the teacher, but by the degree of comprehension of the student. Different students are presented with different instructional materials, depending on their preparation and understanding, and assessment is done to make sure they have a certain level of comprehension before proceeding. In a traditional math lecture, if a concept is not understood, the student may "glaze over" and not benefit from the balance of the lecture, while the instructor blazes along writing on the chalk board with the right hand and erasing with the left hand, whereas a programmed instruction would present additional instruction on the topic so the student was prepared to learn the material following. An individual tutor could do the same thing, but in education that is the exception, and more expensive than providing a printed manual with programmed instruction, or a PC with a CD or internet connection. Edison (talk) 17:11, 20 November 2009 (UTC)

There is a thorough articles about Computer_aided_learning.

Tiger Woods

2003 census said Elin Nordegren is Asianbut she seems white. [3] This said Tiger wood's wife is asian. I only hear one black man asian women, could somebody list some famous people who is black asian? --209.129.85.4 (talk) 22:00, 19 November 2009 (UTC)

That site notes that Woods' mother, not his wife, is of (primarily) Asian descent. — Lomn 22:15, 19 November 2009 (UTC)

You're going to need to define Asian first. For example, some people particularly Americans (where you're from) may only include East Asians and most Southeast Asians. On the other hand others (e.g. people from the UK would only include South Asians. Others would include all of these and [{Central Asians]] as well and some may even include West Asians ('Middle Eastern' people). If I'm correct about your previous questions and my memory serves me correctly you're one of the ones who includes East Asians and Southeast Asians but perhaps not others but of course there's no point me or any other answerer guessing. It would be helpful to define what you mean by black too. In any case Black Asian should provide some help although I would presume you've already read it Nil Einne (talk) 09:02, 20 November 2009 (UTC).

Vin Dieselis a bit of everything isn't he?hotclaws 22:09, 20 November 2009 (UTC)

OP, here's the main part of your famous black Asians list. DOR (HK) (talk) 11:36, 22 November 2009 (UTC)

What is that rhombus-shaped strip of land between Iraq and Saudi Arabia in this map? (just west of Kuwait)

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Union_of_Soviet_Socialist_Republics_(orthographic_projection).svg

Is or was it some kind of no-man's land or something?--Sangthebirds (talk) 22:52, 19 November 2009 (UTC)

Yes (more or less). It was Saudi–Iraqi neutral zone. --Martynas Patasius (talk) 22:56, 19 November 2009 (UTC)

See Saudi-Iraqi neutral zone; FYI, see also Saudi-Kuwaiti neutral zone. Both have since been divided by treaty. Newyorkbrad (talk) 22:57, 19 November 2009 (UTC)