User talk:Johndodd

"Welcome" Letter :-)
Welcome!

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Thanks!
Thanks for fixing that table on my user page. Jtrost 00:18, 14 February 2006 (UTC)

Not said in Talk:Judicial activism when I realized the poster probably wasn't coming back.

 * After reading the article Common Law I realized from where the Supreme Court would get the notion that they could use "Foreign Law" in U.S. rulings. Common Law at it root is uncodified and derives from what is, according to community standards, commonly held to be just .   At the inception of the US Supreme Court, The Court had Common Law as its basis and a new document, The United States Constitution, to interpret. What if not Common Law could the original justices use to make their rulings?   And is it therefore not in keeping with "Originial Settings" and "Fundamental President" for the current Court to acknowledge the broader Global Community in which we live?

Not. Quite. First, judicial activism is a charge made in the face of a judge interpreting statutes: acts of legislatures. It's a claim that -- using whatever model of statutory interpretation the judge applies (and there are arguably between three and five competing with one another in the U.S. at the present) -- the judge has enacted his own policy choices over those of the legislature that passed the law way back when, the legislature today, popular political opinion, or the public conception of how a particular law is "supposed to work".

The accusing side says, "X ambiguous provision in this law means Y, and if you interpreted laws according to A school of statutory interpretation, you'd reach that result." And the other side says, "No, X really means Z, and the judge used B school of interpretation." And it gets really weird when, on another issue side X says the judge should have used B to reach their preferred Y outcome, when he got to conclusion Z by doing A.

I think that's why we at Wikipedia are having such a hard time coming up with something we can agree on.

Second, under any modern constitution in a country that has a common law -- to the extent the legislature does not violate entrenched laws that limit the legislature's power -- the legislature and not the courts decide what the law is. Violent felonies were established as crimes by courts in England. Today, nearly the whole of criminal law is governed by statute. There are few bastions left where judge-made law is the norm. And even there legislatures could step in and enact comprehensive statutes taking control of the law in those fields as well.

With that out of the way, more directly to your question... The canon of what English judge-made law would have precidential value (i.e., would bind U.S. courts) was closed when the colonies declared their independence. After that, any new developments in the British Empire didn't control what went on in American courts. Between the English case law that was expropriated, the laws of the colonial and early state courts, and the statutory laws of the colonies, states, and new federal government, there federal judiciary and the state courts in the new federal system had plenty to work with.

The areas where you see judges using foreign and international law are the rather obvious places where international rights are implicated: treaties and international transactions. It's more controversial when treaties aren't self-executing (i.e., all the treaty says is, "Countries H, I, J, and K agree to pass laws in their respective legislatures that say P, Q, R, and S."). And it's most controversially raised in the context of the Eighth Amendment (the prohibition against cruel and unusual punishment). There are some judges that say, like you suggest, "We should look to our international peers to see what they say is cruel and unusual," but even in this case, they aren't taking a German decision to be binding precident on them. Conversely, there are judges who say we should look to particular other sources to define cruel and unusual.

I think your confusion is an example of why any discussion of judicial activism needs to start with a more thorough treatment of the competing theories of statutory interpretation in this country.

Johndodd 15:43, 15 February 2006 (UTC)

IL. SUP CT.
Actually, Mcmorrow just got done being Chief Justice, Thomas is it now, i think User:Briaboru

Image:Unofficialpeoria.svg
Please add a self-licensed tag to Image:Unofficialpeoria.svg in addition to the logo one, so that there's no doubt you're releasing your own SVG work. I think this is the first openly available vector image of the city logo. For what it's worth, I can't seem to find any trademarks for the City of Peoria itself at the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office website, but the Indian-head logo has been used on city letterhead, flags, and vehicles for at least a decade or two. --Closeapple 06:11, 3 August 2006 (UTC)
 * I didn't know you could do multiple license tags on an image. I guess there's no reason you couldn't.
 * If it turns out there's no restriction on the logo, I'll break that off the flag, and put it in another file. I just wish there was a good reference drawing of the official city flag.
 * Johndodd 06:47, 3 August 2006 (UTC)
 * Well, they've been using that logo for quite some time, and it's on everything official pretty much, except the police cars now. You could commit a zoning violation and get free letterhead for the logo, but there's probably a less complicated way.  There might be a flag hanging inside City Hall that you could measure.  --Closeapple 22:50, 3 August 2006 (UTC)

Grifo Mágico
Hi. I'm not sure about if it is an optical illusion, you can remove it from the article. The "sculpture" is in a aquatic park in Spain. It is a famous optical effect, and this sculpture isn't special over others. If you find the perfect place for it, say me. I don't consider it a feature picture because it was a speedy shot :(. Cheers --Emijrp 16:00, 6 August 2006 (UTC)

Talk:Bow tie
Hi,

You may have an interest, since I saw your name in the history list of the Bow tie article: There's a separate article, List of bow tie wearers and an admin is suggesting deleting it. When I looked into the Bow tie page, I found there's already a list there. I don't have an opinion on which list should remain, but one really should go. I'd appreciate your advice on the Talk:Bow tie page, if you're interested and have the time.Noroton 00:40, 10 October 2006 (UTC)
 * I actually used to know one of the guys on the "List of" page (he was wearing bow ties back then when we were both just out of college). I can't believe there's a Wikipedia page on him. When the lists get merged, I'm sure someone will take him off, and the fact is, I'd have to agree. When I started looking into it, Google came up with the "bow tie" nickname for the Chevrolet logo, something I'd never heard of before. I hope somehow, some way, that remains, whether or not people like Chevy cars on the list. Thanks for contributing, by the way: You've done your part to uphold civilization (as for bow ties themselves, well, I never had much use for them).Noroton 01:34, 10 October 2006 (UTC)

bow tie business again
My idea of polling people on what they want with the bow-tie articles hasn't exactly worked perfectly. I don't see much of a consensus for moving the list to one page or the other, so I'm going to try this: I'll cut down the list on the Bow tie main page to a summary and make sure everything is on the List of bow tie wearers page sometime late this week unless I hear a strong objection from those, like you, who have suggested otherwise. I think (hope) that's an acceptable resolution. Feel free to speak up if I'm all wet.Noroton 20:32, 15 October 2006 (UTC)

Bundestag graph
I used Microsoft Excel to make the Bundestag graph as a pie chart -- I can send you an example spreadsheet or describe the process if you are thinking of making something similar for another article or project.

The inner ring represents the pre-election party balance for comparison (the number in parentheses). I use a half-circle for both rings because I've seen more examples like that in the past, I think. Willhsmit 18:33, 23 November 2006 (UTC)

To arms! To arms!
The List of bow tie wearers page has been nominated for article deletion (Articles for deletion/List of bow tie wearers) and there are already seven deletionists surrounding me. Are you, a contributor to that page (and to the discussion on the Bow tie page back in October) gonna let them do that?!? Defend our page! Go there to vote to uphold truth, justice and the civilized way! Noroton 20:31, 16 January 2007 (UTC)

New WikiProject Illinois Collaboration Division
Hey, saw you were a participant in the Illinois WikiProject. I thought I would let you know that there is a new Collaboration Division up for the project. The goal of the division is to select an article or articles for improvement to Good article standard or higher. There is a simple nomination process, which you can check out on the division subpage, to make sure each candidate for collaboration has enough interested editors. This is a good way to get a lot of articles to a quality status quickly. Please consider participating. More details can be seen at the division subpage. IvoShandor 11:25, 10 March 2007 (UTC)

Image:Unofficialpeoria.svg
Hello Johndodd, an automated process has found an image or media file tagged as nonfree media, such as fair use. The image (Image:Unofficialpeoria.svg) was found at the following location: User:Johndodd. This image or media will be removed per statement number 9 of our non-free content policy. The image or media will be replaced with Image:NonFreeImageRemoved.svg, so your formatting of your userpage should be fine. The image that was replaced will not be automatically deleted, but it could be deleted at a later date. Articles using the same image should not be affected by my edits. I ask you to please not re-add the image to your userpage and could consider finding a replacement image licensed under either the Creative Commons or GFDL license or released to the public domain. Please note that it is possible that the image on your page is included vie a template or usebox. In that case, please find a free image for the template or userbox. Thanks for your attention and cooperation. User:Gnome (Bot)-talk 05:44, 19 May 2007 (UTC)

WikiProject Illinois 2007 Census
IvoShandor 11:12, 4 October 2007 (UTC)

WP:Hornbook -- a new WP:Law task force for the J.D. curriculum
Andrew Gradman talk/WP:Hornbook 20:44, 31 July 2009 (UTC)

Orphaned non-free image File:Unofficialpeoria.svg
 Thanks for uploading File:Unofficialpeoria.svg. The image description page currently specifies that the image is non-free and may only be used on Wikipedia under a claim of fair use. However, the image is currently orphaned, meaning that it is not used in any articles on Wikipedia. If the image was previously in an article, please go to the article and see why it was removed. You may add it back if you think that that will be useful. However, please note that images for which a replacement could be created are not acceptable for use on Wikipedia (see our policy for non-free media).

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Notification: changes to "Mark my edits as minor by default" preference
Hello there. This is an automated message to tell you about the gradual phasing out of the preference entitled "Mark all edits minor by default", which you currently have (or very recently had) enabled.

On 13 March 2011, this preference was hidden from the user preferences screen as part of efforts to prevent its accidental misuse (consensus discussion). This had the effect of locking users in to their existing preference, which, in your case, was. To complete the process, your preference will automatically be changed to  in the next few days. This does not require any intervention on your part and you will still be able to manually mark your edits as being 'minor'. The only thing that's changed is that you will no longer have them marked as minor by default.

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Thank you for your understanding and happy editing :) Editing on behalf of User:Jarry1250, LivingBot (talk) 20:30, 14 March 2011 (UTC)

Non-free rationale for File:Unofficialpeoria.svg
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If you have uploaded other non-free media, consider checking that you have specified the non-free rationale on those pages too. You can find a list of 'file' pages you have edited by clicking on the "my contributions" link (it is located at the very top of any Wikipedia page when you are logged in), and then selecting "File" from the dropdown box. Note that any non-free media lacking such an explanation will be deleted one week after they have been tagged, as described on criteria for speedy deletion. If the file is already gone, you can still make a request for undeletion and ask for a chance to fix the problem. If you have any questions, please ask them at the Media copyright questions page. Thank you. Sfan00 IMG (talk) 11:39, 5 July 2012 (UTC)

Orphaned non-free image File:Unofficialpeoria.svg
 Thanks for uploading File:Unofficialpeoria.svg. The image description page currently specifies that the image is non-free and may only be used on Wikipedia under a claim of fair use. However, the image is currently not used in any articles on Wikipedia. If the image was previously in an article, please go to the article and see why it was removed. You may add it back if you think that that will be useful. However, please note that images for which a replacement could be created are not acceptable for use on Wikipedia (see our policy for non-free media).

Note that any non-free images not used in any articles will be deleted after seven days, as described in the criteria for speedy deletion. Thank you. Stefan2 (talk) 17:22, 9 February 2014 (UTC)

Wikipedia:WikiProject United States/The 50,000 Challenge
--MediaWiki message delivery (talk) 02:41, 8 November 2016 (UTC)

Wikipedia-integrated academic journal
Hi,

I'm messaging to ask whether you might be interested in being an editor for the WikiJournal of Humanities (www.WikiJHum.org)? It's a journal modelled on the successful Wikipedia-integrated medical journal (www.WikiJMed.org). The editorial board is covers a range of fields and expertise in the Humanities, arts and social sciences.

It couples the rigour of academic peer review with the extreme reach of the encyclopedia. It is therefore an excellent way to achieve public engagement, outreach and impact public understanding of science (articles often get >100,000 views per year).

Peer-reviewed articles are dual-published both as standard academic PDFs, as well as directly into Wikipedia. This improves the accuracy of the encyclopedia, and rewards academics,experts and professionals with citable, indexed publications. It also provides much greater reach than is normally achieved through traditional scholarly publishing.

Based on my experiences, time commitment is pretty flexible. An editor would generally devote 2-10 hours per month to inviting suitable submissions and organise their external peer review:
 * Identify fully missing Wikipedia topics and invite academics to write broad review articles on them (e.g. this)
 * Identify important, but poorly covered topics and invite experts to update or overhaul them (e.g. this)
 * Invite authors of good Wikipedia pages to put their articles through external peer review (like this)
 * Possibly implement some figure or gallery review articles (e.g this and this)

Hopefully it will help to get experts, academics and professionals to contribute content to the encyclopedia via a more familiar and cv-rewarding academic journal format.

Anyway, let me know if it's the sort of thing that might interest you. PS. A relevant article in Science.

T.Shafee(Evo &#38; Evo)talk 12:02, 27 November 2017 (UTC)