Wikipedia:Reference desk/Archives/Humanities/2010 July 7

= July 7 =

After 1776 but before Washington
Having read the articles President of the United States and President of the Continental Congress, I'm still not very clear on one thing (I'm not American, so it wasn't covered in school): Who (individual or group) was in charge in the time between the declaration of Independence and the Election of GW? I know that the president is just one branch of the US government (Executive), so I get those divisions, but what about those gap years? Aaronite (talk) 05:18, 7 July 2010 (UTC)
 * In the period specified, the US had a weak central government under the Continental Congress and the Articles of Confederation. If some emergency had occurred, like an attack by some foreign power, the "Congress" would have requested that the states send their militias to repel the invasion, and if the navy needed ships or the army needed cannon, the congress would have requested that the states send money, with no power to levy national taxes or raise a national army by a draft. The national government had no power to enforce laws, and each state had an equal vote. The states held considerable power, with sole authority to enact and enforce laws, raise taxes, or maintain militias. It is not clear who had the power to make treaties or declare war. A strong central government only kicked in with the ratification of the Constitution, followed by the election of the first President under the Constitution, Washington, and the swearing in of the 1st US Congress. The last years of the Continental Congress were an example of do-nothing government. The last day there was a quorum was October 10, 1788. No business could have been conducted after that date, until the First congress under the Constitution was sworn in, apparently on March 4, 1789. Wikipedia calls the final Continental Congress the Congress of the Confederation, but that terminology is apparently original research by Wikipedians, and not found in official documents of the period. The official printed proceedings of this body  call it simply the "Continental Congress." The section covering 1788-1789 still calls it the "Continental Congress." .  The Library of Congress site says "The First Continental Congress met from September 5 to October 26, 1774. The Second Continental Congress ran from May 10, 1775, to March 2, 1789." . Edison (talk) 05:48, 7 July 2010 (UTC)


 * To sum up: the states were mostly in charge of themselves, the Congress was the national government, such as it was. Congress appointed a couple of ministers who were the most important national officers: the United States Secretary of Foreign Affairs and the Superintendent of Finance of the United States. (The President of Congress was essentially just a chairman.) Our articles on the Continental Congress are not very good, and don't cover the important activities of Robert Morris, John Jay, and the various commissioners sent overseas, which is probably why your questions arose.


 * P.S. The claim that the term "Congress of the Confederation" is "original research" by Wikipedians is truly bizarre. A Google Book search of that phrase gets nearly 52,000 hits going back to the early 1800s, including original documents. Whether Wikipedia actually needs separate articles on the Continental Congress, the First Continental Congress, the Second Continental Congress, and the Confederation Congress is another question. Personally I'd merge them all under "Continental Congress", if I ever got around to working seriously on the subject. —Kevin Myers 07:24, 7 July 2010 (UTC)
 * I would go along with merging Second Continental Congress and Congress of the Confederation, since the Library of Congress says they are the same organization. Edison (talk) 17:52, 7 July 2010 (UTC)
 * My request for citations to document the official name was "Congress of the Confederation" rather than the term "Second Continental Congress" per the Library of Congress and official publications of the body itself has been on the talk page of the article since June 2007, so I do not consider it "truly bizarre." Some of the hits are a description rather than a name as such. And I could not find that term used even as a description in books actually published before 1815, at Google Book search (that service has a habit of misdating books, since it just notes the first date it sees at the beginning of a book, often part of the title).  An example of this descriptive use is Jefferson Davis using the descriptions "Congress of the Confederation" and "Congress of the Constitution" in a comparison of their powers:. The article about the US Congress is not named the "Congress of the Constitution." In a detailed work about the US from 1784 to 1803, "Ark of Empire," by Dale Van Every, the Continental Congress is discussed, but the term "Congress of the Confederation" does not appear. I acknowledge that it has been widely used as a description, even though I have not seen documents from that body in which it so named itself. Maybe they are out there. I suppose it makes sense to use it as a descriptor in the title of the article. But it was not "the name of the organization" while it was in operation. The term they used on documents seems to be "The United States in Congress Assembled," which makes sense, since they did not foresee other congresses to come after them, and which would not make a useful article title for the penniless and powerless congress of that era. Edison (talk) 15:50, 7 July 2010 (UTC)


 * The standard (if old) scholarly work on the Continental Congress, Burnett's The Continental Congress (1941), says: "Many historians have drawn a distinction between the Continental Congress and the Congress of the Confederation, applying the first name to the period before the adoption of the Articles of Confederation, the later to the subsequent period." (p. viii) Burnett decided to ignore this distinction, since the Congress was essentially unchanged after the ratification of the Articles. Most historians have followed his lead. The distinction is thus clearly not "original research" by some Wikipedian, though the distinction appears to be outdated, like much historical writing in neglected Wikipedia articles. Probably the first step in bringing our coverage up to current standards would be to merge Second Continental Congress and Congress of the Confederation, as you suggest. —Kevin Myers 02:35, 8 July 2010 (UTC)

"Continental"
This thread makes me wonder — although I was a history major in college, and I'm rather familiar with the basics of American politics at this time, I've never understood one thing: why did they use the term "Continental"? Why didn't they call themselves the "Colonial Congress" or something else? Nyttend (talk) 05:10, 8 July 2010 (UTC)


 * Because they fought to not be a colony. They were as much in control of a continent as any European state was at the time, or is today, in control of Europe. Also, and I have no real proof of this, I suspect the current use of "Continental" has more in common with 20th century philosophical terms than it does with 18th century political ones.


 * Another aside, the OP didn't say as much, but the original title kind of begs the question, the original capitol was Philadelphia, not Washington. Shadowjams (talk) 06:35, 8 July 2010 (UTC)
 * Just to get things straight, the original capital was Philadelphia. (Or was it? I'm only correcting the language here, without knowing the facts.) Capitol is the name of the building. /Coffeeshivers (talk) 10:48, 8 July 2010 (UTC)
 * Yes it was the first. But the first of no less than nine capitals.  Can any other country ever have had so many capital cities?  --   Jack of Oz    ... speak! ...   12:05, 8 July 2010 (UTC)


 * They called the congress "Continental" (i.e. covering the continent, a grand but unrealized goal) to distinguish it from the other congresses that were then being formed on the provincial level, such as the Massachusetts Provincial Congress and the North Carolina Provincial Congress. In practice, they usually just called it "the Congress". —Kevin Myers 12:30, 8 July 2010 (UTC)
 * One thing that distinguished the founding fathers was a long-term vision - something that some say we lack nowadays. ←Baseball Bugs What's up, Doc? carrots→ 12:43, 8 July 2010 (UTC)

How many times has Germany won the FIFA World Cup?
Wouldn't it be zero, since West Germany won the previous times (not Germany)? 203.206.255.12 (talk) 06:34, 7 July 2010 (UTC)
 * I've no idea but your question reminds me of the question about if your car is still the same car you bought from the factory if since then you've replaced all the parts. Dismas |(talk) 06:50, 7 July 2010 (UTC)
 * I don't see the connection myself, Dismas, but you may want to look at Ship of Theseus. Deor (talk) 12:56, 7 July 2010 (UTC)
 * The article on the Germany national football team, governed by the German Football Association DFB, states that "...the pre-war traditions and organisations of Germany were carried on by the Federal Republic of Germany, which was referred to as West Germany... With recognition by FIFA and UEFA, the DFB maintained and continued the record of the pre-war team..."; and "...The reunification of Germany was confirmed in August to take effect on 3 October 1990, with the access of the former GDR to the Federal Republic of Germany. The members of the East German association Deutscher Fußball-Verband acceded to the DFB in November..." So, these strongly imply, at least, that West Germany was organised and recognised internationally in the period 1950-90 on the same basis as Germany as a whole was, both before and after that period.  Ghmyrtle (talk) 08:18, 7 July 2010 (UTC)
 * Yep, I would liken it to the USA losing states to the Confederate States of America. Do you consider the modern day USA a different country from that? Or even the pre-1960 when the last states were created vs. today? chandler 13:02, 7 July 2010 (UTC)

As FIFA.com says, Germany have won it three times --87.115.36.236 (talk) 11:46, 7 July 2010 (UTC)
 * Although Germany played as West and East Germany up, the two merged in 1990. The East German team technically merged into the West German team, and they were unified as one, and so, Germany have won the world cup 3 times. -- Jack ?! 22:16, 7 July 2010 (UTC)
 * Although no one has every stayed awake for an entire game of soccer, so we have to take the players' words for it. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 142.104.139.74 (talk) 23:18, 7 July 2010 (UTC)

To put it another way, there never was such a country as "West Germany". That was just a nickname for the German Federal Republic. In 1990 the German Democratic Republic (nicknamed "East Germany") was absorbed by the German Federal Republic. After this there was no point in the old nickname, so people started using "Germany" as the short name of the German Federal Republic instead. But West Germany and today's Germany are the same country. --Anonymous, 00:00 UTC, July 8, 2010.
 * German reunification goes into this in some detail, and even explains why "reunification" is not the best term to label what happened, even though it's what we call it (and hence it's why our article is so named). --  202.142.129.66 (talk) 02:27, 8 July 2010 (UTC)

Would this be considered discrimination in Ontario?
Suppose I'm an employer and I hire a bunch of people to lift heavy things from A to B. My research suggests that the average man (that I hire) can lift 400 kg from A to B in an hour, while the average woman can lift 100 kg in the same time. Would it be legal to pay my male employees four times what I pay the females? Of course, ideally, I should keep track of how much each person has lifted and pay them accordingly, but suppose that's impractical.

Note: All of this is hypothetical. --99.237.234.104 (talk) 07:01, 7 July 2010 (UTC)


 * Paying by amount of piecework done has certainly been legal under some circumstances, but I don't see how lifting things really qualifies as piecework... AnonMoos (talk) 08:35, 7 July 2010 (UTC)


 * I would suggest your research is wrong. First of all, even in a single lift - a measure of pure strength, the factor would not be four to one. Second, the difference diminishes as the endurance factor increases. Certainly paying men more would be discrimination, just as paying white people more than black in management positions because there are more successful white managers than blacks would be discrimination. You could well have individual women outperforming individual men in your group. -- Q Chris (talk) 08:37, 7 July 2010 (UTC)
 * Statistics and facts are two different things. Men are usually stronger than women. Now if he does just pay all the women a quarter the amount he pays the men becase of their sex, that is sexism, but if he pays by the amount they can move, and the women move less, that's fine.--92.251.137.196 (talk) 15:11, 7 July 2010 (UTC)


 * You may find the article Equal Pay Act of 1963 helpful. 87.81.230.195 (talk) 08:40, 7 July 2010 (UTC)
 * This is a U.S. law; the O.P. was asking specifically about Ontario. — Kpalion(talk) 11:21, 7 July 2010 (UTC)
 * Oops! Sorry; forgot what side of the (to me very distant) border Ontario is on! I would have made amends with the relevant info from the Ontario article, but Adam Bishop is ahead of me. 87.81.230.195 (talk) 21:06, 7 July 2010 (UTC)
 * The relevant laws for Ontario are the Employment Standards Act and the Pay Equity Act. We don't have articles for them but you can read them here and here. Adam Bishop (talk) 12:39, 7 July 2010 (UTC)
 * On a practical level, remember that you aren't hiring "the average" man and woman, but specific individuals. If Janet moves more boxes than Bob, it isn't fair to pay her less just because you're assuming she's average.  And I, too, would be a little astonished to find even an above-average man moving 400 kg an hour, all day, without finishing up the day in a hospital.  -FisherQueen (talk · contribs) 12:43, 7 July 2010 (UTC)
 * Is it one 400 kg weight per hour? Eight 50-kg ones?   Twenty 20-kg ones?  In the U.S., a case with 10 reams of 8.5 x 11 paper weighs around 50 pounds, just under 23 kg, "heavy" by some measures; you'd have 3 minutes to move one if you wanted to hit 400 kg per hour.
 * Is moving the weight entirely by muscle power a bona fide qualification? Does the worker get to use a hand truck, a pallet jack, a forklift?  If not, why not? --- OtherDave (talk) 13:24, 7 July 2010 (UTC)
 * 400 kg/hr is not really all that much. That is only about 25 full milk crates an hour, or one every other minute.  Googlemeister (talk) 14:26, 7 July 2010 (UTC)
 * If you're paying people based on how much they can move, that's fine. Women tend to be weaker than men, so it's likely they'd get paid a less. You are discrimiating based on strength. However if you are assuming that all of the women can only lift a quarter of the amount all the men can lift, when in fact some of them can lift more than some of the men, you're being sexist. Nobody is average.--92.251.137.196 (talk) 15:09, 7 July 2010 (UTC)
 * It reminds me of something I heard about firefighters. According to rumour, the physical requirements to become a firefighter ask men to carry heavier people on their shoulders than it ask of women, yet men aren't paid more. I guess they get around the problem by not sending the women firefighters into houses to save fat people; there will be other work at the fire for her to do, so it's not like she's being lazy. Though I wonder what they would do if random distribution ever resulted in an all-woman fire hall that had to rescue a fat person. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 142.104.139.74 (talk) 23:17, 7 July 2010 (UTC)
 * There is no one that one male firefighter can lift that two female firefighters can't lift. Indeed, I remember learning the 'fireman's carry' in girl scouts- it was a two-woman carrying method that worked very well.  Mr Fatty is not more likely to die at an all-female fire hall- he's just more likely to be carried by two people, which frankly is probably more stable anyway. -FisherQueen (talk · contribs) 23:58, 7 July 2010 (UTC)
 * But you would need to hire an additional person for that. Googlemeister (talk) 13:24, 8 July 2010 (UTC)
 * What if it's impractical to test each individual's strength? Why is it illegal to pay women less if, on average, the women would receive just as much money for kg moved as the men?  --99.237.234.104 (talk) 23:53, 7 July 2010 (UTC)
 * Because then you're not giving the really strong women enough money and you're giving the weak men more money than they deserve. 142.104.139.74 (talk) 00:33, 8 July 2010 (UTC)

There have been court cases in Canada about job requirements involving the ability to lift things. I remember that one of the railways had a requirement that an employee had to be able to lift and carry a coupler singlehanded, and this was challenged as being an excuse to discriminate against women, most of whom could not do it. The final judgement was in favor of the female applicants on the grounds that moving couplers around was only occasionally required and there was no legitimate need for it do be done singlehanded. I think a requirement on firefighters being able to lift a certain weight, and this was in Ontario, was similarly overturned. But I don't have specific cases to cite, and this is not exactly the same as the original query topic anyway. --Anonymous, 01:01 UTC, July 8, 2010.

American Evidentiary Law Hypotheticals
I am an American lawyer who needs to brush up on litigation skills. Evidentiary law seems uncomplicated until I try answering hypotheticals. We had a superb teacher in law school but I was nursing a broken heart and never completed the daily homework. Can someone recommend where I can find the best set of hypotheticals with cogent answers so that I may master the material now? I have a set of fairly recent Bar/Bri materials. Thanks.75Janice (talk) 16:17, 7 July 2010 (UTC)75Janice.
 * Examples and Explanations. If you're not familiar with that series, search on Amazon.--达伟 (talk) 19:52, 7 July 2010 (UTC)

Your client is convicted of an overdue library book and sentenced to 10 years in the electric chair. How much should you charge him for your services? 24.118.123.34 (talk) 04:40, 8 July 2010 (UTC)
 * E&E is always good, but if you need a professional level practice guide then I know there's an evidence practice guide but its name escapes me right now. I may try to answer again in a day or two after I've looked around. I know Moore's Practice Guide is excellent for the FRCP. Honestly, if you're asking this question on here you probably not looking for a detailed answer. The lexis/westlaw notes for any of the FRE rules are good. Also remember spell check before turning anything in. There are three in your OP. Shadowjams (talk) 06:32, 8 July 2010 (UTC)

Women in the Vietnam War
Did (m)any women dress as men and go to Vietnam as soldiers? I heard a Peter, Paul and Mary song ("The Cruel War", maybe?) in which a woman is talking about how she will do that to be with her love. —Preceding unsigned comment added by Ceridhwen (talk • contribs) 23:23, 7 July 2010 (UTC)

I am 99.99% Sure that no females served in front line combat duty during the Vietnam war, It would be pretty much impossible for a women to have snuck into the army dressed like a man as they do a pretty thorough physical before you even get into training. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 209.167.165.2 (talk) 03:20, 8 July 2010 (UTC)
 * what he/she said, but here is an interesting list List of wartime crossdressers  meltBanana  12:41, 8 July 2010 (UTC)


 * I don't know about dressing up as men, but there certainly were Vietnamese Women at War. (Incidentally, the Peter, Paul and Mary song is part of a stream of folk music around the theme of a woman who wants to accompany her love to war. See several references in this discussion at Mudcat.org.  Example: The Warfare is Raging, which was collected by Cecil Sharp in Appalachia in 1916). --- OtherDave (talk) 12:52, 8 July 2010 (UTC)

There certainly were nurses there who came under fire in field hospital..Also see Monsterous Regiment.88.96.226.6 (talk) 03:24, 11 July 2010 (UTC)

Pakistani military history.
I read with great pride about pakistani students being awarded with sword of honor in sandhurst,etc.Also the first female student to be awarded it in pakistan. Has any of pakistan's illustrious military institutions;P.M.A,o.T.S.,P.A.F.A,etc,ever awarded their coveted "Sword of honor" to any foreign student.If so, who, when ,where and who was the first to be awarded it?? —Preceding unsigned comment added by Papasheikhtijan (talk • contribs) 23:59, 7 July 2010 (UTC)