Wikipedia:Reference desk/Archives/Humanities/2008 October 13

= October 13 =

UK Citizenship

 * Section title added by User:Grsz11

Hello ,I want to know that how can a international worker obtain Nationality in UK —Preceding unsigned comment added by 119.154.11.136 (talk) 02:41, 13 October 2008 (UTC)
 * Here are the official rules. See also British nationality law. Tevildo (talk) 06:42, 13 October 2008 (UTC)

What does a 0.5% lowering of interest mean?
The world over, interests have been lowered by 0.5% last week. How much money does that represent? Is that 0.5% of the world's assets? And how much would that be then? A rough guess is one quadrillion euro. So 0.5% would represent an effective injection of 5 trillion euro into the world economy? Note that I barely know what I am talking about. :) Amrad (talk) 06:50, 13 October 2008 (UTC)


 * Have a look at Bank base rate, interest rate - it should explain it a little more. The 0.5% drop is not an amount of money of itself, it is a change in the rate payable on borrowing. My (also limited) understanding is that the lowering of the base-rate will help spur back into action the housing-market (such a change will filter through to consumers by way of lower mortgage interest rates), but it will also help because it will make it cheaper for banks to lend money from central-banks (and other banks too?). 194.221.133.226 (talk) 08:47, 13 October 2008 (UTC)


 * Ordinary companies need constant lines of credit from banks to go about their usual business (examples: bridge financing and working capital management). In order to do this, banks require lines of credit from other banks in the money market. In times of high risk aversion, it becomes harder for anyone to borrow because banks are unwilling to lend (or only willing to lend at higher (unaffordable) spreads to the base rate - see credit spread) so lowering the base rate lowers the rate that banks borrow from each other and therefore lowers the rate at which banks lend to everyone else. Zain Ebrahim (talk) 09:31, 13 October 2008 (UTC)
 * You missed a step: It lowers the rate central banks lend to banks which, hopefully, will lower the rate banks lend to each other. That last step usually works perfectly and we don't think about it, but in the present climate LIBOR seems almost completely disconnected from base rates. --Tango (talk) 11:03, 13 October 2008 (UTC)

Modern use of pirate flag (Jolly Roger)
At summer I saw a ship with a big Jolly Roger pirate flag (and no national flag), at harbor of Turku, Finland. That was very propably a joke, because authorities did not react, but still some people said it is somehow illegal or "bad habit" and authorities should have reacted. My questions are: -Is jolly roger somehow illegal or "bad habit" in Finnish or other nations waters or international waters? How will authorities usually react? -What are you allowed to do if you encounter ship with a pirate flag at international waters? Is such ship under no legal protection? Can you attack such ship? 193.65.112.51 (talk) 10:41, 13 October 2008 (UTC)


 * Our article that you link to describes various militaries using the flag, so it's clearly not absolutely illegal under any international law. There may be some restrictions on its use, but I don't know of any. If you are attacked at sea then you can defend yourself, but I doubt a pre-emptive strike on a ship just for flying the Jolly Roger would be tolerated. --Tango (talk) 11:22, 13 October 2008 (UTC)


 * There are still real pirates on the high seas, but alas! nowadays they are too devious to announce themselves to other shipping in the traditional way. If the Jolly Roger is used correctly, in the course of piracy, then flying it should surely be encouraged and not made an offense in itself. On the other hand, if the flag is used incorrectly by non-pirates, then it must be at best irregular. Strawless (talk) 12:00, 13 October 2008 (UTC)
 * If the Jolly Roger is used correctly, in the course of piracy ....  Isn't expecting pirates to do anything according to the rules a bit of a contradiction in terms?  --  JackofOz (talk) 20:53, 13 October 2008 (UTC)
 * No. Algebraist 08:40, 14 October 2008 (UTC)
 * OK, thanks. That makes no mention of flags, and I don't believe I'm understanding the essence of Strawless's point yet.  If it was humour, it's lost on me, sorry.  --  JackofOz (talk) 21:19, 14 October 2008 (UTC)


 * Aren't ships supposed to fly a national flag? APL (talk) 22:38, 14 October 2008 (UTC)

Alchemical Image Query?
Does anyone have a better copy of the image linked below, as well as a reference (Title/Artist/Publication)? Cheers.

http://www.sacred-texts.com/eso/beyond.gif —Preceding unsigned comment added by Sheldon Bartleby (talk • contribs) 11:08, 13 October 2008 (UTC)
 * "Anyone" in that case would be Wikipedia itself, see Flammarion woodcut -- Ferkelparade &pi; 12:06, 13 October 2008 (UTC)

Does the term Neo-Hinduism have any consistant meaning?
I have heard the term Neo-Hinduism used to describe vastly different things, from things like the Ramakrishna Math and ISKCON (which is actually quite conservative) to new-agers who use a few Hindu terms like Karma and Chakra. Is there any recognised definition on this? Wikipedia has articles on Which makes me wonder should it be Neo-Hinduism, Neo Hinduism, or Neohinduism? I am thinking about writing a stub article but the fact that I can't find out what it means or even how to write it seems to be a bit of an obstacle! -- Q Chris (talk) 13:45, 13 October 2008 (UTC)
 * Neo-Confucianism
 * Neo Christian (a redirect)
 * Neopaganism


 * I would say that any form of Hinduism or Hindu-influenced religiosity which accepts individual non-Hindu converts is pretty much "neo-Hindu" by definition -- since in traditional Hinduism, such individual conversion of outsiders was basically impossible (the only way that people could usually enter into Hinduism was by whole groups slowly collectively assimilating, and being assigned a caste status, generally near the bottom of the hierarchy). AnonMoos (talk) 15:23, 13 October 2008 (UTC)
 * there is Hindu revivalism, which groups all "neo-Hindu" movements, but I don't think it is commonly called "Neo-Hinduism". --dab (&#55304;&#56435;) 21:02, 13 October 2008 (UTC)