Wikipedia:Reference desk/Archives/Humanities/2007 December 29

= December 29 =

Looking for pics - help
Does anyone know where I can download pictures of Ann Coulter barefoot or wearing socks?? —Preceding unsigned comment added by 81.76.8.224 (talk) 00:01, 29 December 2007 (UTC)
 * Let me just say this: Ewwwww..... - Nunh-huh 00:37, 29 December 2007 (UTC)


 * Could've been worse. He could've asked for the sex tape. ;) --Kurt Shaped Box (talk) 14:55, 29 December 2007 (UTC)


 * I couldn't find any, she always appears to be wearing a pair of black heels. If her feet are anything like her freakish hands, its not surprising she wants to keep them covered up. Rockpock  e  t  09:06, 30 December 2007 (UTC)


 * Does she play the piano? If not, she should.  --  JackofOz (talk) 09:16, 30 December 2007 (UTC)
 * I don't think so, but she likes the Grateful Dead, The Bible and calling people she doesn't like "fags". A real charmer. Rockpock  e  t  09:37, 30 December 2007 (UTC)

logrolling--has anyone heard of corrupt dealmaking betw.public defenders and
prosecutors? What I specifically have in mind is where a public defender takes a dive on one case, so that defendant John Doe goes to jail, in return for more lenient prosecution on a different case with a different defendant. Thanks, Rich (talk) 02:29, 29 December 2007 (UTC)


 * If you do a bit of searching around for quid pro quo examples in legal-cases for google you get some similar stuff, but none I saw had the collusion of two lawyers trading favours in one case in order to have the favour returned in another. ny156uk (talk) 12:57, 29 December 2007 (UTC)
 * Thanks, I'll try searches under quid pro quo. I hadn't thought of that.Rich (talk) 02:31, 1 January 2008 (UTC)

GDP in the 70-s
Does anyone have, or could perhaps compute, the average GDP per capita of all the communist countries (Warsaw pact+Yugoslavia+China) in the 70-s and the average GDP per capita of all the other countries then (West, Africa,...)? Cptukbo (talk) 08:29, 29 December 2007 (UTC)

Here is half the data for of your question though you will have to get to work with the calculator). You will have to add together the various constituent parts of the former eastern European countries, and also find the populations. SaundersW (talk) 11:58, 29 December 2007 (UTC)
 * What explains the high position of Slovenia on that list? User:Krator (t c) 12:32, 29 December 2007 (UTC)
 * Populations in 1975 are here. I thought that was really interesting too, especially compared with the low position of Serbia and Montenegro. SaundersW (talk) 12:48, 29 December 2007 (UTC)

Asaish - Kurdish secret police?
I've been reading a Polish article, and the name 'Asaisz' popped up. It seems it is some form of Kurdish secret police/Kurdish intelligence service/Kurdish Security Force, but I couldn't find anything about it on Wiki (suprisingly, Law enforcement by country doesn't have a section on Iraq, and Law enforcement in Iraq article has no section on Kurds). There is nothing useful in Category:Law enforcement in Iraq, neither. Search for Asaish nets a few more hits in English but not much more. Maybe the right spelling is different? Perhaps somebody could provide more information here, and/or stub the relevant articles? --Piotr Konieczny aka Prokonsul Piotrus 15:08, 29 December 2007 (UTC)


 * "Asaysh" seems to get some useful results on Google. Adam Bishop (talk) 18:50, 29 December 2007 (UTC)
 * True, albeit not any more when associated with +Kurdush than Asaish; on the bright side Google suggested Asayesh which gives much more hits (4500 compare to few hundreds earlier results gathered). I am still looking for anything that would appear to be a reliable source for English-accepted name and definition, though.--Piotr Konieczny aka Prokonsul Piotrus 21:57, 29 December 2007 (UTC)

Textbook use in the US
Does anyone know of some way to source the statement that a certain textbook is used widely in US education (or possibly to make the statement more precise)? A user suggested we could use the sales figures, but he doesn't know where to get them - does anyone know that? Furthermore, I was wondering if the sales figures would be enough, since the book also represents an alternative, dissident view and we might need to know what part of the buyers actually used it as a textbook and not as a reading. It was suggested that you can tell US textbooks from other books based on the price, so the high price of this book would suggest it is used primarily as such. Thoughts, anyone?--Anonymous44 (talk) 16:06, 29 December 2007 (UTC)
 * I believe in US Boards of Educations are responsible for obtaining and distributing the books. Perhaps somebody more familiar with them may help, contacting one or two and asking questions may be another option.--Piotr Konieczny aka Prokonsul Piotrus 17:26, 29 December 2007 (UTC)
 * If it is a big-name publisher it should be pretty easy. Do you have one in mind? Wrad (talk) 23:28, 29 December 2007 (UTC)
 * It's Wadsworth Publishing. So what could we do? --Anonymous44 (talk) 23:46, 29 December 2007 (UTC)
 * Apparently they were formerly known as Thomson Learning. You could easily make a statement that they create many popular textbooks used worldwide, and cite their website. The source would be biased, but the statement would, nevertheless, be true. Wrad (talk) 00:05, 30 December 2007 (UTC)
 * Thanks, I was wondering why I can't find a wiki article about it! But do you think the fact that they publish popular textbooks is sufficient as a proof that an individual textbook they have published is popular? It's Thomson's, ergo it's widely used? Seems like a kind of strange thing to write in a footnote.--Anonymous44 (talk) 00:25, 30 December 2007 (UTC)
 * It depends on what you're trying to argue. What's the article you're working on? Wrad (talk) 00:28, 30 December 2007 (UTC)
 * It's Michael Parenti. The article mentions a textbook he wrote, "Democracy for the Few". The question is how one could source the "used widely" part.--Anonymous44 (talk) 12:59, 30 December 2007 (UTC)
 * Here's a textbook rating website. Wrad (talk) 00:42, 30 December 2007 (UTC)
 * Thanks! It's a pity that particular textbook hasn't been reviewed there yet. --Anonymous44 (talk) 12:59, 30 December 2007 (UTC)


 * I happen to have experience in textbook publishing. Wadsworth and Thomson are important publishers for the higher-education (college and university) textbook market.  They are not significant in the primary or secondary markets.  Sales figures are difficult to obtain, as they are proprietary information held by publishers.  Publishers can fairly accurately estimate the size of a given market and, based on their sales, deduce their market share.  However, they tend not to release this information publicly unless it will boost their share prices.  For the purposes of Wikipedia, I would omit the vague and subjective adverb "widely".  There is no good way to substantiate that something is "widely" used, since it isn't clear exactly what that means. I think that I might stick to "a textbook used in U.S. colleges and universities" without trying to indicate its relative popularity.  Marco polo (talk) 03:14, 30 December 2007 (UTC)


 * I see, I was afraid that would be the case. I could imagine two ways to fix this: citing a reliable source such as a study of US education mentioning the textbook and using the word "widely" or a clearly synonymous expression; or replacing "widely" with a concrete number from some sort of statistics for the use of various textbooks in US education. Unfortunately, I have no idea where either of these could be found.--Anonymous44 (talk) 12:59, 30 December 2007 (UTC)

What Dutch painter signed with "ploos"
I've encountered a series of sea-ship paintings of very high quality, painted in a late 19th century style. The ships are clearly Dutch sailing ships of modest size. The signature looks like "ploos". The paintings are about 24 x 36, all in matching gilded frames from the turn of the 20th century. Nothing on the back identifies the provenance, but the frames look to be original the paintings.

I've not been able to find any information searching the web, searching the public library, or searching here. The only connection I've found is to Cornelius Ploos van Amstel, who lived in the later 18th century and is known as a skilled art collector.

Can you identify a Dutch sea painter from the late 19th century who signed his work "ploos"

Thanks, Phil Grisier San Francisco —Preceding unsigned comment added by Pgrisier (talk • contribs) 17:37, 29 December 2007 (UTC)
 * Can you upload a picture of the painting or of the signature? Maybe this website will help you. It allows you to search the collections of all maritime museums in the Netherlands. You can also try emailing one of those museums (the maritime museum of amsterdam is probably the best) and ask them. risk (talk) 00:58, 30 December 2007 (UTC)


 * There is a Dutch painter, born in 1926, named Jaap Ploos van Amstel or, possibly Jaap van Amstel Ploos, but he is too young for the dating you have given. Those gilded frames were quite common in North America right up until after WWII. If you have a local art gallery or art museum, they may have specialists in this area. If they cannot identify the paintings for you, they may know who can. Because you live in San Francisco, representatives from auction houses like Sotheby's and Christie's often visit, looking for specific artists or types of art. The visits are usually announced in local papers and it is quite easy (and free) to get an expert to look at your samples. Bielle (talk) 03:57, 31 December 2007 (UTC)

Bangladesh provincial government?
Why Bangladesh doesn't have its own provincial or I should say divisional governments to represent the federal government, like Canada, India and Pakistan, they have premiers(Canada) and Chief Ministers(Indian and Pakistan) to represent the Prime Minister? —Preceding unsigned comment added by 76.64.131.137 (talk) 18:20, 29 December 2007 (UTC)


 * Canada, India, and Pakistan are federations, with separate governments at the national and subnational (provincial or state) level. Canadian provincial premiers and the chief ministers of India's states and Pakistan's provinces do not represent their nation's prime minister.  Instead, they are the heads of separate governments at the state or provincial level.  Often, they belong to a different party than the nation's prime minister. Unlike Canada, India, and Pakistan, Bangladesh is a unitary state.  In fact, the divisional commissioners of Bangladesh (the chief officers of its divisions) do represent the prime minister of Bangladesh, as they are appointed by the prime minister. The same is true for the chief officers of the districts and upazilas.  Unlike the provinces of Canada and Pakistan and the states of India, the subdivisions of Bangladesh do not have separate governments.  Instead they are in effect departments of the national government.  Marco polo (talk) 03:06, 30 December 2007 (UTC)

Is there a list of divisional commissioners of Bangladesh and chief officers of the districts and sub-districts, so I can see, Please?


 * Here is a list of divisional commissioners in Bangladesh. Sorry that I have not been able to find lists of chief officers of zilas and upazilas.  Marco polo (talk) 02:05, 31 December 2007 (UTC)

DMV in south carolina website
I am trying to find the DMV SC website and Google's first search result page does not have a GOV website. I am pretty sure DMV SC does not use a .com website or even a .ORG website. If it is a .GOV website, could someone tell me what that is? thanksKushalt 18:22, 29 December 2007 (UTC) Kushalt 18:24, 29 December 2007 (UTC)
 * Found it at http://www.scdmvonline.com/DMVNew/default.aspx --— Gadget850 (Ed)  talk  -  18:27, 29 December 2007 (UTC)

So it is a dot com? I learned from .gov that some agencies have dot com websites. maybe DMV SC is one of them. thanks Kushalt 18:35, 29 December 2007 (UTC)
 * Frankly, the TLDs don't mean a damn thing anymore. The website of the governent of the city of Tallahassee is http://talgov.com/ .tv is supposed to be for the country of Tuvalu, but most people think it stands for television. —Keenan Pepper 23:58, 29 December 2007 (UTC)

It makes the job difficult for people who tell not to trust dot com and dot org to be governmental agencies. I know sites like GoArmy gets a lot of criticism but I think it is well deserved. Why could they not just reserve the dot com and have it redirect to the dot gov? Is it too much work? Even old BBC has websites like bbc world service dot com which they advertise but these addresses redirect to the bbc.co.uk DMV SC could do the same thing. but i guess it involves politics and the desire to keep things separate from the federal government? Kushalt 10:22, 30 December 2007 (UTC)


 * I'd like to point out that .co.uk, like .com, indicates a commercial site, just one that is in the UK rather than anywhere. Presumably the BBC uses this domain rather than .gov.uk to reflect its status as a quango rather than part of the government.  --Anonymous, 06:00 UTC, December 31, 2007.


 * For what it's worth; here in Virginia we have a great government portal at http://www.virginia.gov/ but the DMV is at http://dmvnow.com/. Now that I look at more in depth, that is really an alias for https://www.dmv.virginia.gov.  --—  Gadget850 (Ed)  talk  -  12:55, 30 December 2007 (UTC)

I hope SC and TX DMV get the gov address too (respectively using dot com and dot us now) Kushalt 22:58, 30 December 2007 (UTC)


 * South Carolina is NOTORIOUS for using inappropriate TLDs. I found that out with the "SC Statehouse Online". The full list can be found (amongst other places), here. Anyway, I HIGHLY doubt that the avoidance of .gov has to do with federalism, since minor towns, states, counties, townships, and agencies of them will use .gov because it does look trustworthy (I'm assuming). Also note that many states make use of their sub-ccTLDs, EG. http://www.state.nj.us/dmv 68.39.174.238 (talk) 02:08, 31 December 2007 (UTC)