Wikipedia:Reference desk/Archives/Humanities/2017 June 2

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June 2

How does the UK Government work?

I keep receiving conflicting information about how the UK Government actually works. What is the relationship between the Monarch of the United Kingdom and Parliament? Are they both the "government"? Where does the Church of England fit in? I have an impression that the Church of England is like a government department, because it records who marries whom and who is born to whom. Who is in charge of the Church of England - the Monarch or God? How much power does the Church of England have over the people, and does it deal with sins the same way a secular government deals with crimes? Also in the news, I am aware that the UK has "elections". But who really participates in the elections? Can a member of the royal family or noble family (including the Monarch) run as Prime Minister? 50.4.236.254 (talk) 00:53, 2 June 2017 (UTC)

This discussion has been closed. Please do not modify it.
The following discussion has been closed. Please do not modify it.
That's quite a few questions, so let me take them one at a time. The monarch and Parliament's relationship has changed substantially throughout history. Presently, the Queen is head of state, which means, just like the U.S. president, she greets foreign dignitaries, signs bills into law, and names members of the government (ministers and their deputies, known as Secretaries of State) and members of the judicial branch (the most senior of which is the Archbishop of Canterbury). The government is led by the Queen but she appoints a First Lord of the Treasury to take questions on her behalf from the lower house of parliament, which mostly comprises hostile lower and middle class citizens. The Queen calls then "commoners", hence the lower house is the House of Commons. The Queen also appoints lords to the upper house House of Lords (there are minimum property requirements to be appointed to the House of Lords and only those of noble blood can be appointed). The judicial branch is known as the Church of England and the highest judges sit in the House of Lords. These are the law lords and include the Lord Chancellor, Lord Chief Poohbah, and the Lord Chancellor. The judicial branch is also represented in the government (the Lord Chancellor is a Cabinet minister too) and as you rightly assume, is also in charge of marriage, birth, and death registration of citizens (all of whom, because the UK has a state church, are Protestants). The UK has special courts for non citizens, including Sharia Courts for Muslims, and the Royal Infidel Courts for atheists. God heads the Church of England but appoints the Queen to govern it. He appoints a monarch for a lifetime term. Unlike in the US, God does not require advice and consent when making appointments. "Elections" in the UK are for prime minister. Each constituency in the UK "elects" a potential prime minister. Then, in the House of Commons, potential prime ministers must demonstrate their potential for being a feasible underling to the Queen by debating each other hysterically once a week (this is Prime Ministers' Questions). I hope this helps. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 118.160.82.96 (talk) 10:29, 2 June 2017 (UTC) Please be aware that the answer above, posted by user 118.160.82.96, is a spoof, and bears no relationship to the actual situation. Most readers should recognise this - but just in case ....Wymspen (talk) 10:40, 2 June 2017 (UTC) Seems fairly accurate to me, but I agree with Jayon32 below that they should read the article and frame specific questions. Answering questions here is inappropriate when there is a decent article that does the job. Dmcq (talk) 12:02, 2 June 2017 (UTC)

Wikipedia has articles titled Government of the United Kingdom and Constitution of the United Kingdom which explains how the British state operates. Elections in the United Kingdom explains how elections work. Church of England explains how that works. If after reading those articles, you have more specific questions or need clarification, please reference which passages you don't understand, and we'll try to provide you with more reading to clarify. --Jayron32 01:10, 2 June 2017 (UTC)

A street grid made of congruent triangular blocks?

Does one exist? Sagittarian Milky Way (talk) 01:24, 2 June 2017 (UTC)

Probably not (at least not as a planned city, though one can find triangles arising accidentally in unplanned cities or because of "diagonal" streets in a rectilinear network). this article explores non-rectilinear city planning, but it also makes clear that few if any such plans have ever been put into place, all planned cities are usually based on a rectilinear grid, though a few are based on a spoke-and-ring system, for example Detroit, Michigan has some features of such a plan, which can create roughly triangular "wedges"; outside of the immediate center city, however, Detroit returns to the standard rectilinear design. --Jayron32 01:41, 2 June 2017 (UTC)

This book also discusses urban planning and such designs, and notes the possibility, but discounts it as impractical. --Jayron32 01:42, 2 June 2017 (UTC)

Since I live in Detroit, I can tell you that the areas with angled streets are a real pain. For example, having to make non-90 degree turns is difficult. And instead of calling a lane north-bound, you have to call it northeast-bound or northwest-bound. Then there's the ugly triangular lots it creates at intersections, leading to odd triangular buildings. StuRat (talk) 03:57, 2 June 2017 (UTC)

Like these? Sagittarian Milky Way (talk) 05:35, 2 June 2017 (UTC)

The waterline prow extension is a Sprint store

I take it you've never driven in a European city? Non-90 degree turns difficult? Oh dear..... 131.251.254.154 (talk) 10:30, 2 June 2017 (UTC)

No need to leave the continent or country or even the Midwest. ---Sluzzelin talk 18:49, 2 June 2017 (UTC)

Actually, both of those switchbacks have regular 90° intersections at each end. See here and here. --69.159.63.238 (talk) 00:08, 3 June 2017 (UTC)

Not a very regular grid, but street pattern of Paris comes quite close and was planned. It has a number of nodes (Place Charles de Gaulle, Place Victor Hugo, Place du Trocadéro et du 11 Novembre 1918, Place de la Republique etc.) and large roads connecting those nodes in straight lines. It's quite efficient in the sense that the shortest route from one place to another following the roads isn't much longer than following a straight line.

Rectangular patterns were common in the Roman world and seem to be the standard in the US, but planned cities in other parts of the world often use different patterns. These may offer on average shorter connections, or give better control on traffic flow to lead traffic away from residential areas, or force detours for cars but provide shortcuts for cyclists to promote bicycle use, aut cetera. Have a look at the street patterns of Brasília, Lelystad or Canberra. PiusImpavidus (talk) 08:52, 2 June 2017 (UTC)

Brasilia uses hexagon street layout in the small and narrow Q. Res. Sudoeste district. 209.149.113.5 (talk) 15:46, 2 June 2017 (UTC)

While triangular roadways are not common, consider a mishmash of seemingly random triangles. West Ashley by Charleston, SC is a mess of triangles. Look at it on a map - zoom out a bit. You will see triangles. 61/7/Old Towne Rd is obvious. Magnolia Rd/61/17 is another. Ashley Hall Rd/61/7 is another. Orleans/61/7 is another.. 7/17/Wapoo is a triangle if you include the north end of Wapoo. Magwood Dr/61/Glenn McConnell Pkwy is another triangle set inside the Bees Ferry Rd/61/Glenn McConnell Pkwy triangle. I used to hate giving directions around the West Ashley area because it is rare that you can make three rights and end up back where you started. As for why the roads are set up like that, it is the old spoke design. The bridge to the peninsula was one of the very few places to cross the Ashley River. So, the major roads began there and went out like spokes of a wheel. Other roads connected the spokes and formed triangles. Once you have a lot of triangles, adding more roads tends to create more triangles. On the other side of the Peninsula is Mt. Pleasant. It was mostly developed very recently. So, it doesn't have the same spoke design. I'm sure if you look at old towns that haven't completely redone their road systems, you will find similar spoke designs. I know that Detroit has some residual spoke roads that make little sense in their mile-grid system. 209.149.113.5 (talk) 19:48, 2 June 2017 (UTC)

• Washington, DC was a planned city. It has a regular rectangular grid of lettered and numbered streets, overlaid with a hub-and-spoke system of named avenues. This leads to a very large number of triangular blocks in addition to square blocks and circles at the hubs, and quite a few intersections with more than four entryways, making for a traffic nightmare. -Arch dude (talk) 03:18, 3 June 2017 (UTC)

L'Enfant's plan for Washington, D.C., as revised by Andrew Ellicott. 1792.

• It's important to note that these so-called "traffic nightmare" problems are only a traffic nightmare for automobile-based navigation. All of these cities were planned pre-automobile. Most people got around by walking, except those that were rich enough to get to sit on a horse, which is pretty much mostly moving at walking speed. Making a 30 degree turn on a horse or navigating a 6 way intersection on foot is not a problem. It's why modern urban planning isn't based on a grid of any sort, usually; it's based on the street heirarchy plan, which doesn't depend so much on pretty little angular grids, but rather on keeping automobiles moving forward without having to stop. If you want to know what the modern city plan looks like, it isn't Washington DC, but rather Fairfax County, Virginia which should serve as our model, because of the way in which the street hierarchy collects and funnels cars from neighborhoods to expressways, and then distributes them to industrial and commercial districts. You pull out of your driveway on to a cul-de-sac in, say, Springfield, Virginia, which feeds some small boulevard that connects all of the cul-de-sacs to a collector road, you know, a two-lane with a double-yellow divider. That collector road allows you access to an arterial road, like say the Fairfax County Parkway, that then feeds you to a freeway, say I-95, which you take to another arterial road, say US 1 South into Crystal City, where a two lane side road takes you to a parking garage under a sky scraper where you get out and go to your job. At no point in this journey do you need to navigate a grid, triangle-, hexagon, or rectangle-based, at all. Why? Because this road network was planned out for cars, and grids suck for cars. But just because it isn't a grid doesn't mean this wasn't planned; the placement and organization of these roads is not accidental, and it was planned specifically to get you to your destination as efficiently as possible. --Jayron32 04:24, 3 June 2017 (UTC)

• Washington DC's streets were specifically designed to impede traffic (to help the city resist cavalry charges) back in the 1700s. 173.228.123.121 (talk) 05:25, 3 June 2017 (UTC)

Two questions about climate change denial

1. Why is climate change denial as a movement far more prevalent in the United States compared to the rest of the world? While out article does explain that oil lobbying is a larger force in the US, the article does not explain why climate change denial, both as a movement and as a belief, is not as common in other countries, even with countries with interests in oil. Even in countries with low beliefs in anthropogenic climate change, this seems to be more due to lower levels of education than actual climate change denial lobbies.

2. Other than the Republican Party, are there any other major politicial parties worldwide which officially deny climate change? Our article only specifically mentions the Republican Party as denying climate change, while mentioning that other parties generally do not, even if individual members sometimes do. Narutolovehinata5 ^tccsdnew 04:10, 2 June 2017 (UTC)

1. Anti-intellectualism#In the United States has some good information about it. In the United States, the primary political strategy of the right involves primarily being opposed to anything the left says or does, without regard for its validity or usefulness. For at least 10 years or so, if a Democrat takes any position, the Republican takes the opposing position automatically; the classic example is Obamacare, which is actually a Republican-designed program (see Romneycare, which is the blueprint used for Obamacare). Republicans were fine with it until a Democratic politician tried to enact it. Because the Democrats support legislation to curb pollution and environmental degradation, the strategy of the Republican party is to oppose it by any means necessary. America is largely tribal in its politics, people identify with a party first, THEN decide on their political opinions based on what that party holds as its positions. Because of this, the Republican strategy works very well for them. Whether individual Republican politicians privately believe in climate change denial is unknown, the strategy is to make itself appear as different from the Democratic party as possible, and the way they do that is to take oppositional positions on ALL issues. Lest you think this is personal observation, This Article quotes the Robert Draper book Do Not Ask What Good We Do which itself gives direct quotes from Republican politicians and strategists, such as "We’ve gotta challenge them on every single bill and challenge them on every single campaign." (quote by Kevin McCarthy). Draper's book notes that the Republican strategy following the election of Obama had 4 key points, and point 2 was "to oppose any economic policies put forth by Obama" The plan worked to allow the Republicans to gain control of the House and Senate, and so because it worked, as a strategy it has been expanded so that any and all policy positions by the Democratic party are opposed automatically and without question. That's primarily why the Republicans are climate change deniers.

2. No idea. --Jayron32 04:32, 2 June 2017 (UTC)

Regarding 2: I don't know about "officially" ... is denial the official position of the Republican Party, or is there just widespread consensus among Republican office-holders, ranging from "it's not as bad as claimed" via "it may be happening but it's not created by humans" to "it's all one big hoax fabricated by liberals", with some lone Republicans who do not share this view at all? ... Anyway, with similar reservations regarding "officially", the Alternative for Germany and the UK Independence Party come to mind. The Swiss People's Party is certainly skeptical, but I wouldn't call the party, as a whole, climate-change-deniers. None of these are "major parties" when compared to the GOP of course. ---Sluzzelin talk 04:38, 2 June 2017 (UTC)

Climate science denial is not an official position of the Republican Party. However, the official platform of the Republican Party does call for withdrawing from the Paris Agreement, rejecting any national carbon price/tax, and ending the Clean Power Plan, etc. Interestingly, as recently as 2008, the Republican party platform supported development of renewable energy and slowly reducing fossil fuel emissions over the long-term. Now the focus is on expanding fossil fuel development. Of course, it is worth noting that party platforms in the US are heavily influenced by the leader of the party, which at the moment is Donald Trump. Dragons flight (talk) 07:21, 2 June 2017 (UTC)

I don't know of any sociological studies of why it has taken hold more in the US> My take on it is that individualism and self-reliance has been a creed for quite a long time in America from the time the wagons rolled west. Unfortunately this makes people quite susceptible to quacks with a good patter rather than respecting the authority of people who have trained and spent their lives working on problems. Individualism also means companies have no compunctions about following their interests and paying for denial. Most other countries value society more. It is practically the same reasons guns are so popular and why health care for the poor is so lousy. Dmcq (talk) 07:31, 2 June 2017 (UTC)

Your explanation is a bit narrow. The individualism of Americans does make them susceptible to quacks, such as the antivac and climate change deniers. But, it also makes them demand proof. Many (I believe most) Americans want to see proof for claims made by the media. There is very little proof that the public can access. So, it is hard to explain that climate science isn't just a bunch of eggheads running cherry-picked numbers through some filters that don't really make much sense until they get a good looking hockey-stick graph that will make for a high-profit documentary. What's worse is that climate science has been around long enough that the alarmist claims have come and then gone as the terrible events didn't happen. Re-watch An Inconvenient Truth if you can get your hands on an unedited version that doesn't have all the alarmist claims removed. Did all the snow melt off Mt. Kilimanjaro by 2016? Have surface temperatures continued to accelerate every year since 2006? Are there far more storms with greater intensity since Hurricane Katrina? An average person who saw the documentary back then is, in my opinion, fully justified in questioning the climate science behind the documentary. But, if you question anything at all about climate science, you are labeled a moronic climate denier. 209.149.113.5 (talk) 14:59, 2 June 2017 (UTC)

I don't know about that film as I've never looked at it and I didn't know it has been edited since, I don't see anything in the article about that. Gore isn't a scientist - you are simply matching one person who has a good patter against another rather than taking any notice of the actual science, which is exactly what I said Americans tend to do. I wouldn't call it moronic. I'd settle for rather silly. I have the same problem with election debates, people seem to think that rousing up a mob or rhethoric in front of a camera is a good basis for being able to run a country. I think it would be far better if poiticians were confined to print in elections and not even their faces were shown. Dmcq (talk) 16:07, 2 June 2017 (UTC)

Apart from fund raising projects,assignments,donations from donors,users and other organizations,what are the other ways by which Wikimedia receieve money for charitable purposes?

In 2016,Wikimedia Foundation has gained a surplus of about US$16 million as it is a non profit organization.But I also feel sorry to ask this type of a question,because I am presently studying about "Not-for-profit organizations" for my Advanced Learning.If you can give instructions ,it will be a kind of assistance that I could get for my studies. Abishe (talk) 07:09, 2 June 2017 (UTC)

Most of the funding is from donations. Some comes from interest on investments, A small amount comes from sales at the Wikipedia Store.[1] --Guy Macon (talk) 08:22, 2 June 2017 (UTC)

blood donation consent form

To apparently there's this company that sells blood to literal vampires[2].

My question is: when you donate blood in the US, is there a consent form of some sort that says: "Your donated blood will go towards medical or research needs"?

If there no such form then I guess there's no limit on how the donated blood is used. Scala Cats (talk) 16:55, 2 June 2017 (UTC)

Translation from German to English

Can this please be translated.

Leitstelle de Nachrichten Aufklaerung

scope_creep (talk) 18:30, 2 June 2017 (UTC)

I agree with the translation "Headquarters of Signal Intelligence" given in General der Nachrichtenaufklärung. Xenon54 (talk) 18:39, 2 June 2017 (UTC)

Thanks. scope_creep (talk) 19:49, 2 June 2017 (UTC)

Translation from German to English

Does anybody know what this is, translate from German to English

Wehrwirtschaftsnachr

scope_creep (talk) 21:03, 2 June 2017 (UTC)

Litterally, it is defense + economy, but might refer to mobilization. — 2606:A000:4C0C:E200:0:0:0:2 (talk) 21:15, 2 June 2017 (UTC) —P.s: try translation queries at the language desk.

Wehrwirtschaftsnachr (WWN) or "military economy msgs" were bulletins about the Russian economic situation compiled during WW2 by German army signal intelligence based on intercepted Soviet radio traffic, see [3]. Blooteuth (talk) 22:54, 2 June 2017 (UTC)

You seem to be getting good answers this time, but for future reference, the Language reference desk is really the right one for this sort of query. --69.159.63.238 (talk) 00:10, 3 June 2017 (UTC)

(EC): Wehrwirtschaftsnachr[.] is not a proper German word, it’s an abbreviation of Wehrwirtschaftsnachrichten (might also be spelt (spelled) Wehrwirtschafts-Nachrichten). Wehrwirtschaft has been translated as "war economy"; in this context, "report(s)" might be a fitting translation for Nachrichten (which has a whole range of meanings). Cheers ✦ _hugarheimur 00:16, 3 June 2017 (UTC)