Wikipedia:Reference desk/Archives/Humanities/2010 July 8

= July 8 =

Poetry
Ok call me a philistine, but what is the point of poetry exactly?--88.104.91.80 (talk) 00:48, 8 July 2010 (UTC)


 * to remind those of us who are capable of understanding that there is more to life than getting laid and arguing over stupid crap. -- Ludwigs 2  00:58, 8 July 2010 (UTC)


 * Or to aid in those endeavours. Matt Deres (talk) 02:29, 8 July 2010 (UTC)
 * Win. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 142.104.139.74 (talk) 19:32, 8 July 2010 (UTC)
 * It's art, just like a picture. If poetry doesn't invoke feelings in you, that's just because it is not your cup of tea.  To some other people, poetry means a lot.  Poetry is fairly valuable to us as a society; I heard many poems when I was a kid, and I believe that most other Americans do as well. Falconus p  t   c 02:42, 8 July 2010 (UTC)
 * Agreed. I can't stand poetry, and I skip anything printed in Italic text when I'm reading fiction that contains or quotes poetry.  That said, the "point" is the same as any other art (most of which I can't stand).  It's a form of expression that, to some, expresses something in a way that no other means can.  I tend to think of poetry as lyrics without music.  It annoys me less that way, but at least it helps me understand why others might appreciate it. Aaronite (talk) 02:47, 8 July 2010 (UTC)


 * Poetry is just a way of using imagery and metaphor to express some idea that would be difficult/impossible to express prosaically. If you don't have any interest in non-prosaic things, then you probably will have no interest in poetry.  -- Ludwigs 2  03:25, 8 July 2010 (UTC)


 * Whether iambic pentameter, haiku, or free verse, there is also the adherence to a structure, more or less demanding, which calls upon one's creative talents. P ЄTЄRS J V ЄСRUМВА  ►TALK 04:30, 8 July 2010 (UTC)
 * P.S. The question rather implies you have not written poetry. Writing poetry yourself might provide you the best answer. P ЄTЄRS J V ЄСRUМВА  ►TALK 04:32, 8 July 2010 (UTC)


 * T. S. Eliot would disagree: "The most important thing for poets to do is to write as little as possible." --   Jack of Oz    ... speak! ...   12:01, 8 July 2010 (UTC)


 * Paul Dirac said "In science one tries to tell people, in such a way as to be understood by everyone, something that no one ever knew before. But in the case of poetry, it's the exact opposite!" 20.137.18.50 (talk) 11:53, 8 July 2010 (UTC)
 * There was a TV series about civilization, a few decades ago, that was hosted by Abba Eban (sp?) and one thing I recall about it is his repeated references to countries or cultures that produced "poetry and philosophy", which was apparently regarded as a sign of true civilization. I take it to mean that it's a people who have stopped fighting massive wars sufficiently that they have time to reflect on the human condition and such, to create art, i.e. things that have little or no "practical" value, but which are "beautiful". Which may be why there are so many more poems connected with the Jews than with the Philistines, for example. :) ←Baseball Bugs What's up, Doc? carrots→ 12:40, 8 July 2010 (UTC)
 * As I understand it, the original point of early epic poetry was to make it possible for one person to learn great tracts of narrative by heart. Some early poems were in circulation as oral traditions for a long time before they were written down. Everything mentioned above followed later. Alansplodge (talk) 14:20, 8 July 2010 (UTC)

The Teeth of the League
On the making of the Treaty of Versailles:


 * ... the French representative on the relevant committee, Leon Bourgeois, kept pressing for an international army or any other mechanism that would endow the League of Nations with automatic enforcement machinery in case Germany abrogated the Versailles settlement -- the only cause of war that interested France.


 * For a fleeting moment, Wilson seemed to endorse the concept by referring to the proposed Covenant as a guarantee of the "land titles of the world." But Wilson's entourage was horrified. Its members knew that the Senate would never ratify a standing international army or a permanent military commitment. One of Wilson's advisers even argued that a provision stipulating the use of force to resist aggression would be unconstitutional:


 * A substantial objection to such a provision is that it would be void if contained in a treaty of the United States, as Congress under the Constitution had the power to declare war. A war automatically arising upon a condition subsequent, pursuant to a treaty provision, is not a war declared by Congress.


 * Taken literally, this meant that no alliance with the United States could ever have binding force.


 * -- page 236 of Diplomacy by Henry Kissinger

Now, how did the U.S. overcome this constitutional obstacle when it created the NATO? -- Toytoy (talk) 09:03, 8 July 2010 (UTC)
 * Well, as stated in our NATO article, the NATO pact does not actually oblige member states to use armed force, only to take measures they consider necessary. The NATO allies merely agreed in principle to consider an attack on one ally to be an attack on the alliance. In the case of the U.S., taking military action would happen in the normal way, with a congressional declaration, or if the situation is urgent, by order of the President. As for the technicality about treaties of alliance with the U.S. not being binding, surely that's the least of a potential ally's concerns. If they expect the U.S. to cop out on that pretext, they're hardly going to rest their security on such a pact. And even if a treaty was "binding", what could the other party do if the U.S. reneged? Would they sue?--Rallette (talk) 12:44, 8 July 2010 (UTC)
 * Well-stated. The "voluntary" nature of it would be the part that keeps it constitutional. Another consideration is that the U.S. political climate was rather different after WWI than after WWII. The USA was still pretty much isolationist after WWI, and WWII pretty much put an end to that. Also, we were not quite strong enough after WWI to impose our will on the League and make it work. After WWII, we were, and we said to our European buddies, "OK, this time we'll do it OUR way, and make it WORK." No small part of it was the Soviet threat which NATO was supposed to be able to counter. There was no similar threat to the US after WWI. (In 1918 the USSR was not ready to be a world power either. By 1945 they were.) ←Baseball Bugs What's up, Doc? carrots→ 12:52, 8 July 2010 (UTC)
 * Sorry Bugs; after WWI the US just refused to have anything to do with the league, despite the best efforts of Wilson. That might be why it didn't work. Alansplodge (talk)
 * Yes, it was isolationism. If Americans could have foreseen WWII, maybe they would have been less so. But until Pearl Harbor, we didn't want anything to do with WWII either. ←Baseball Bugs What's up, Doc? carrots→ 08:48, 9 July 2010 (UTC)


 * That "constitutional obstacle" was only an obstacle in the opinion of one of Wilson's advisers. It was shown later in the century to not be an obstacle at all.  In the US, the President, as commander-in-chief, had (and still has) broad latitude to deploy the US armed forces as desired.  If he were to decide that it was in the interest of US national security to station 10,000 troops in Europe to defend Alsace-Lorraine, then he could do so.  The entire Korean War and the entire Vietnam War were fought without a declaration of war on the US side, for example; this led to the War Powers Resolution, in which Congress tried to curtail Presidential power to commit the US military to combat; but see the Questions regarding constitutionality section of that article for a discussion about the respective roles of Congress and the President.  It is all arguable.  Note that the attitude in the early 1900s did differ from the much more militaristic attitude in the late 1900s; but the Constitution didn't change during that time.  Wilson could have committed troops to a permanent military force, perhaps justifying it with the same Constitutional arguments that US presidents used after World War II; but Congress could have responded by passing a law specifically forbidding that deployment.  Comet Tuttle (talk) 17:25, 8 July 2010 (UTC)
 * As I recall, the Korean War was acting on a UN resolution, and any US involvement would have required funding, regardless of what the US military felt like doing. Vietnam was never a "declared" war, but the Gulf of Tonkin Resolution kind of served that function. Again, no funding, no war, unless the President can talk people into soldiering with their own funds. ←Baseball Bugs What's up, Doc? carrots→ 23:23, 8 July 2010 (UTC)

Dzban Pełen Słońca
This is the title of a play performed in May 1975 at Warsaw's Jewish Theatre. Was it written by Peretz Hirshbein (I'm not sure, so not posting yet to that Discussion page), and originally in Polish rather than Yiddish? And how to translate Dzban Pełen Słońca to English? -- Deborahjay (talk) 11:26, 8 July 2010 (UTC)
 * According to the part of this review that's visible without a subscription, the Jewish State Theatre performs in Yiddish "with simultaneous Polish translation over earphones distributed free to patrons", and the authors of Dzban Pełen Słońca are Michal Szwejlich and Szymon Szurmiej, "from stories by Peretz Hirshbein". According to the part that's not visible but shows up in the Google search snippet, a literal translation of the title is "a jug of sunshine" (though Sunny Ways seems to be the play's "official" English title). Deor (talk) 12:52, 8 July 2010 (UTC)
 * More accurately, the Polish title means "a jug full of sunshine". The Yiddish title is Oyf a zinekn veg. This source also confirms that the play was written by pl:Michał Szwejlich and pl:Szymon Szurmiej based on works by Perec Hirszbejn (as his name is spelled in Polish) and directed by Szymon Szurmiej. — Kpalion(talk) 14:41, 8 July 2010 (UTC)
 * Oh, and note that Polish uses sentence case in titles, so to be 100% correct, it should be written Dzban pełen słońca. — Kpalion(talk) 14:52, 8 July 2010 (UTC)

Alternative Dispute Resolution, UK
Can anyone be an arbiter, or is ADR regulated in some way? Thanks 92.28.250.159 (talk) 13:54, 8 July 2010 (UTC)
 * Alternative Dispute Resolution is probably the best place to start. Shadowjams (talk) 08:31, 9 July 2010 (UTC)

I cannot find any mention of any regulating body in the UK. Which rather suggests there are none. 92.15.3.130 (talk) 11:25, 11 July 2010 (UTC)

Ban cars, only taxis in cities
If all cars were banned in cities and only buses and taxis allowed to be used, would the price of hiring a taxi fall in the long run? 92.28.250.159 (talk) 13:56, 8 July 2010 (UTC)
 * Why would it? With a reduction in choices by the public, the price would be likely to increase, unless it were regulated tightly. ←Baseball Bugs What's up, Doc? carrots→ 14:14, 8 July 2010 (UTC)
 * I'm not sure that holds. Taxi markets are always different fleets pitted against each other, so in an ideally capitalist market (where there is no price fixing), there would still be plenty of place for competition. Increased demand for taxi services would also increase supply over the long term—there would be more taxi fleets vying for your business than there are now, when demand is rather low. Taxis generally are regulated pretty heavily, though, in cities where they are used (I think all fares must be the same in big cities). --Mr.98 (talk) 14:54, 8 July 2010 (UTC)
 * Wikipedia is not a crystal ball. It is impossible to know. In pure capitalism, competitors will drive price down. It is also easy to have price fixing to keep prices high. As a required service, the local government many tax the service to increase prices higher. It may decide to subsidize the service, making it free. There are many other possibilities as well. -- k a i n a w &trade; 14:14, 8 July 2010 (UTC)


 * Strictly speaking, one would expect demand to rise, which would mean higher prices in the short term. However as demand rose, there would be increased motivation to increase supply (more taxis), until the price leveled out at what the market could bear. Would that be higher or lower than at the moment? I'm not sure. It's of note that taxis are more expensive in New York City than they are in Los Angeles, even though in NYC they are used more frequently. On the other hand, the comparison might not be as good—the distances in NYC are a lot smaller (so per mile fare probably has to be more) than in LA, and per trip costs are probably more expensive in LA, due to the distance. --Mr.98 (talk) 14:52, 8 July 2010 (UTC)

In general, taxi fares are for those people who have rigid demands: people who can't drive or who find driving too difficult (e.g., no parking lots in some parts of the city). If you don't have a car and your trip is not important, either you take the bus, or you just stay at home.

Depending on your country or local government, a taxi driver license may be easy to get or very difficult to get (e.g., London). If your country or city bans all private cars, you can only take mass-transportation or ride a bike, the supply of taxis may rise and the costs by distance may drop.

In most taxi markets, taxi fares are rigidly regulated. Some countries may allow higher fees for "sexier" cars (e.g., a limo taxi with a swimming pool in the back of the car). Cities in many countries may only allow one fare plan (sorry, only no-frills taxis). This results in less demand and some taxi drivers may have very few riders. They just leave the market to look for other jobs.

Now if all private cars are banned, taxi fares MUST be lowered to a point where a very elastic customer may call a taxi. Otherwise, people may just stay in their homes abusing their wives and kids and dogs ........


 * Taxi fares will drop.
 * Cars may become more expensive: Fewer people buy cars.
 * People are moving back to inner cities EVEN IN THE U.S.!
 * Lives will be better.

In some countries, where most people are using mass transportation, as far as I know, taxis or human powered- or motorcycle-powered three-wheel passenger cars are very inexpensive by their own standards. If you REALLY NEED TO take them everyday, they shall be very affordable. -- Toytoy (talk) 17:22, 8 July 2010 (UTC) {{fact} on those bullet points. Googlemeister (talk) 18:08, 8 July 2010 (UTC)

Getting people to use bicycles (2, 3 or 4 wheels) should help make people healthier and less overweight too. 92.24.188.89 (talk) 19:56, 8 July 2010 (UTC)
 * It might, but that's up to the individuals to decide for themselves, not someone else to decide for them. One thing to consider is that people who work in New York or are there on business already tend to exploit various modes of public transportation: trains, buses, taxis. People who go there to see tourist locations might be more likely to drive into the city. If you take away that option, people might opt to take a trip to Boston or Philadelphia instead, increasing the tourist revenues for those cities and reducing those revenues for New York. ←Baseball Bugs What's up, Doc? carrots→ 20:03, 8 July 2010 (UTC)

In places like central London, cars are almost banned, especially when compared to the number of people working there. yet the city functions perfectly well. In smaller cities things should be even better as there are less people to transport. For most of their history, cities and towns have not had cars. Its only in the last sixty years or so that they have been common. Making cities car-free would revitalise city centres and reduce urban sprawl. 92.24.188.89 (talk) 20:00, 8 July 2010 (UTC)
 * This isn't a forum, so as it says at the top of the page, do not start a debate. Unless you have factual questions to ask, let's just agree that perhaps you're wrong about everything, and leave it at that. 213.122.30.78 (talk) 23:12, 8 July 2010 (UTC)
 * It's not clear who you're talking to, but since this is your first edit here anyway, your comment can be noted and then ignored. ←Baseball Bugs What's up, Doc? carrots→ 23:20, 8 July 2010 (UTC)
 * OK, will do. 213.122.30.78 (talk) 23:52, 8 July 2010 (UTC)

Treaties
Why were there so many Treaties of Versailles and Treaties of Paris? --138.110.206.101 (talk) 16:16, 8 July 2010 (UTC)


 * Because France was the most powerful country on continental Europe from the 16th century until the end of the 19th century. It participated in most wars and had a very active foreign policy, which necessited a lot of diplomatic treaties having to be approved in France for them to have any value. --Saddhiyama (talk) 16:36, 8 July 2010 (UTC)


 * (ec) Language of diplomacy? Diplomatic love of French cuisine? The French always being involved in something? All of the above? Hopefully someone else has a more informed answer, I figured I'd cover everything that first comes to mind. (ec, obviously not fast enough to be first...) P ЄTЄRS J V ЄСRUМВА  ►TALK 16:40, 8 July 2010 (UTC)


 * The UN is located in New York. I have yet to see a Treaty of New York or Treaty of Coney Island. On second thought, only Italian gangsters would make such treaties. Some participants may be in the East River, sleeping with the fish. -- Toytoy (talk) 17:26, 8 July 2010 (UTC)


 * See Treaty of New York. Comet Tuttle (talk) 18:16, 8 July 2010 (UTC)
 * There's the Treaty of San Francisco. Everard Proudfoot (talk) 21:25, 8 July 2010 (UTC)
 * The New York Convention is very important in the area of international arbitration. --PalaceGuard008 (Talk) 23:52, 8 July 2010 (UTC)
 * The location of treaties is usually a carefully chosen political move designed to (a) impart grandeur and ceremony to the proceedings and (b) make statements about the new relationships of the treating parties. I mean, seriously - treaties could be signed in the Hoboken Holiday Inn or in some ambassador's back yard over beer and barbecue and still be perfectly valid, but it would be a sign that the participants are not taking the treaty seriously.  France was a major player in many wars over the last several hundreds of years, Versailles was about as good as you could get for grand ceremony, Paris is (and has been) the seat of French government - what more could you ask?  -- Ludwigs 2  18:31, 8 July 2010 (UTC)

Looking for quote
I think it's from C.S. Lewis. There might have been a few themes, that life is about the choices made in the littlest things, and that when looking back it may have been one of those decisions that opened up a whole new landscape. Ring a bell for anyone? 198.161.238.19 (talk) 17:31, 8 July 2010 (UTC)
 * I sounds a bit like Till We Have Faces, but it's years since I read that, so I might easily be wrong. --ColinFine (talk) 19:15, 8 July 2010 (UTC)
 * How about: "Every time you make a choice you are turning into the central part of you, the part of you that chooses, into something a little different than it was before. And taking your life as a whole, with all your innumerable choices, all your life long you are slowly turning this central thing into a heavenly creature or a hellish creature: either into a creature that is in harmony with God, and with other creatures, and with itself, or else into one that is in a state of war and hatred with God, and with its fellow creatures, and with itself. To be the one kind of creature is heaven: that is, it is joy and peace and knowledge and power. To be the other means madness, horror, idiocy, rage, impotence, and eternal loneliness. Each of us at each moment is progressing to the one state of the other.". Alansplodge (talk) 19:16, 9 July 2010 (UTC)
 * Thank you for that, it expresses well what I was looking for. Maybe I am conflating some quotes. The one I remember has the image of a mountain or valley or other kind of landscape. 198.161.238.19 (talk) 15:01, 12 July 2010 (UTC)

Finding the quote I'm looking for in an exercise in humility -- it was nothing like I said it was. "Good and evil both increase at compound interest. That is why the little decisions you and I make every day are of such infinite importance. The smallest good act today is the capture of a strategic point from which, a few months later, you may be able to go on to victories you never dreamed of. An apparently trivial indulgence in lust or anger today is the loss of a ridge or railway line or bridgehead from which the enemy may launch an attack otherwise impossible." 198.161.238.19 (talk) 15:23, 12 July 2010 (UTC)

Who has the more powerful military?
India or Great Britain? 148.168.127.10 (talk) 18:32, 8 July 2010 (UTC)


 * Please define "powerful". Do you mean greatest number?  Do you mean most nuclear missiles?  Do you mean most money spent on technology?  Do you the most kills so far? --  k a i n a w &trade; 18:34, 8 July 2010 (UTC)


 * As above, it depends greatly on what you mean. The British Armed Forces are a very high-tech military with very good power projection.  The Indian Armed Forces, on the other hand, are extremely large (about 20 times the active personnel of the UK) and generally modernized, just not up to the level of the UK.  Neither country has the reasonable means to conquer the other, though Britain would likely come out ahead in an all-out nuclear exchange (owing to a combination of numerical and range superiority).  Indian deployment of ballistic missile submarines (slated to occur soon) would alter this significantly. &mdash; Lomn 18:41, 8 July 2010 (UTC)
 * Of course, any discussion of a one-on-one all-out nuclear exchange is purely academic. If Britain and India ended up in a nuclear war, the rest of the world would get involved (defending their allies, taking advantage of their enemies being weakened or distracted, etc.). Even if a one-on-one nuclear war took place, you don't need much nuclear capability on each side to result in mutual destruction. India doesn't currently have a delivery system capable of reaching Britain as far as I can tell, but it is developing several systems that could probably manage it. It would really only take one large nuke to successfully reach the centre of London and detonate to completely devastate the country. --Tango (talk) 19:48, 8 July 2010 (UTC)
 * Heck you don't even need a delivery system if you are taking the first shot. You just need a shipping container labeled "Used Pinball Machine Parts" put the thing in there, and take a load of cargo containers to London.  Googlemeister (talk) 20:00, 8 July 2010 (UTC)
 * You could try. I'm not sure you would succeed. Cargo is usually subject to inspection. The consequences of an ineffective first strike can be very unfortunate, so I wouldn't expect many countries to take the risk. --Tango (talk) 20:16, 8 July 2010 (UTC)
 * Not that I would try, but unless the cargo is intercepted and inspected (and detected) before you reach port, it would not matter. And if they do inspect a long way away, you could just attach it to the bottom of your cargo ship or something.  Hiding something on a ship, even something fairly large is trivial.  Googlemeister (talk) 20:59, 8 July 2010 (UTC)


 * And if you wanted to smuggle it, it wouldn't be as hard as that. Split the bomb up into smaller parts, each of which can be hidden rather easily. Only one part—the plutonium core—is radioactive and problematic and prone to detection, but it's no larger than other contraband objects (like cocaine or heroin or what have you) which have their ways of getting into countries. Re-assemble the bomb in port or after docking. Nuclear smuggling is generally recognized as being an impossible problem to prevent at an inspection level, even with sophisticated radiation monitors. What prevents states from doing this is fear of retaliation, obviously. What prevents terrorists from doing this is that they don't (yet?) have nuclear weapons. Most of those concerned with the idea of terrorists smuggling in nuclear weapons recognize that the trick is to prevent them getting them in the first place! --Mr.98 (talk) 23:01, 8 July 2010 (UTC)
 * Smuggling a suitcase nuke, which is what discussions about nuclear smuggling are usually about, is easy, but they have very low yields. Not enough to destroy a large city. Smuggling a large nuke would be much harder. --Tango (talk) 23:05, 8 July 2010 (UTC)
 * Smuggling in any kind of nuke would be incredibly stupid for anyone who isn't suicidal. 1 nuke will be retalisated against with the whole enemy arsenal.--92.251.187.65 (talk) 00:32, 9 July 2010 (UTC)
 * Only if you know who did it, and if they have a target worth attacking. So for India, right—deterrence keeps you from doing it. For a small band of terrorists, not such an issue. (And they might be suicidal anyway.) Anyway, Tango—there were extensive discussions in the 1950s about the possibility of the Soviets smuggling in larger, Nagasaki-style bombs in through diplomatic pouch. There's nothing that keeps you from doing it, technically speaking. All of the parts can be broken down and reassembled later if you are technically competent, which a nuclear state like India certainly is. Some of them are a little awkward or heavy, as I pointed out, but it's certainly not impossible. One can easily imagine doing so for a modern nuke, which are generally smaller and higher yield. The modern "suitcase nuke" discussion is slightly different, but related. It's worth keeping in mind that the "terrorist nuke" threat and the "state smuggling nuke" threat are different in terms of assumptions about goals, capabilities, planning, etc. --Mr.98 (talk) 01:00, 9 July 2010 (UTC)
 * I think "most powerful" obviously means who would defeat the other in conventional combat. It's hard to say. The UK have a definite technological advatage: the Challenger II is essentially impervious to 125 mm fire from Indian tanks, Indian tanks can be destroyed from 5 km by 120 mm fire (assuming no raeactive armor), the Typhoon is one of the best, if not the best aircraft in the world. But India have vastly superior numbers.--92.251.187.65 (talk) 23:36, 8 July 2010 (UTC)

I think the simple answer is the one which was able to project its military power to the other side of the world, and do so with success. DOR (HK) (talk) 04:40, 9 July 2010 (UTC)
 * The guys with the guns are only a small part of military power. It doesn't matter if you have an army with 1,000,000 shooters in it, if there is no one getting them food, water, fuel and ammunition, they are pretty much screwed.  For that reason, I would have to go with the British (though I don't think they would have enough supply capability to keep a large enough army fighting in India either).  Googlemeister (talk) 13:39, 9 July 2010 (UTC)

I think User:Tango nailed it. Britain vs. India alone in a ring would never happen. US would immediately intervene for Britain and that nullifies the entire question about 1 vs 1. --70.104.22.63 (talk) 02:19, 10 July 2010 (UTC)


 * If you're interested in nuclear bombs, take a look at Nuclear weapons and the United Kingdom and India and weapons of mass destruction. ~ A H  1 (TCU) 15:37, 11 July 2010 (UTC)

Surviving WW1
If you were called up as a private soldier during World War One, what were you chances of surviving until peace? Thanks 92.24.188.89 (talk) 19:13, 8 July 2010 (UTC)
 * Any specific country in mind? Dismas |(talk) 19:17, 8 July 2010 (UTC)
 * The answer would also depend heavily on whether you were called up in 1914 and not discharged during the war, or whether you were called up on 10 November 1918. Marco polo (talk) 19:25, 8 July 2010 (UTC)
 * It would also depend on if you were a French private, or an Australian private, or a Turkish private. Googlemeister (talk) 19:34, 8 July 2010 (UTC)


 * This is more in the category of a 'back of the envelope' calculation. According to List of surviving veterans of World War I, the estimate for the total number of military personnel who served during World War I is 65,038,810, and there were approximately 9,750,103 military deaths during the war. Now not all the people in the military were called up, but most would be. Overall that would make an 85% survival rate. Sam Blacketer (talk) 19:55, 8 July 2010 (UTC)


 * I'd have to say this is a case where averaging severely degrades information and leads to inappropriate conclusions, as in "most survived"—true, but of little value in any meaningful context. P ЄTЄRS J V ЄСRUМВА  ►TALK 20:07, 8 July 2010 (UTC)


 * At least some of those conscripted didn't go into combat roles. Of those that did, it was a lot more dangerous to be in the infantry than the artillary for example. Alansplodge (talk) 21:01, 8 July 2010 (UTC)
 * Of course, if the conscripted didn't like the odds, they could always stick two pencils up their nose, put underpants on their head and say "Wibble." TomorrowTime (talk) 21:47, 8 July 2010 (UTC)


 * I recently read a line about the Soviets in WWII that I found particularly ghastly. Wrong war, but an interesting way to approach the problem: "The draft cohorts of 1921 and 1922, young men who were 22 or 23 in 1943, suffered the highest casualties of any age group during the war: only 3 percent survived." Basically a "lost generation" if ever there was one. If you broke things down by draft cohorts of different countries, you'd probably get the most interesting and applicable results. It would take into account a number of complicating factors pretty easily. --Mr.98 (talk) 22:56, 8 July 2010 (UTC)
 * Before WW1, some of the warhawks said that being in the war would be bracing and refreshing, like going for a hike in the woods and shooting some pheasant. This did not consider trench warfare and machineguns. Edison (talk) 00:00, 9 July 2010 (UTC)
 * What, you don't like the smell of chlorine in the morning? To be fair, warhawks rarely look good in retrospect, no matter the war. I recall not too long ago people saying that Iraq would be a pretty picnic too. Greeted as liberators and all that. --Mr.98 (talk) 10:12, 9 July 2010 (UTC)
 * Some supporters of the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq still say that... Adam Bishop (talk) 19:54, 9 July 2010 (UTC)

Accounts I've read of trench warfare during WW1 describe it as being worse than any horror film, with many unburied corpses all over the place, and your friends dying every day. It must have been like living in a human slaughter house. I recall the survival time for an officer in the trenches was a fortnight (which means two weeks for our north American chums), or was that for fighter pilots during WW2? I do not know what proportion of troops were in support roles rather than in the trenches, and the survival rates for these two groups must have been very different. 92.24.181.157 (talk) 10:11, 9 July 2010 (UTC)


 * The "two weeks" survival was for green American and French fighter pilots on the Western Front of World War I during the height of German dominance in the air. --Carnildo (talk) 02:00, 10 July 2010 (UTC)


 * My American histiory teacher told us that the lifetime for a frontline machinegun crew in WW2 was an hour. (Or was it a half hour?) It did not take very long to bring artillery or mortars to bear, or to call in an airstrike, or to flank the position and toss grenades, when a machinegun nest was stopping a troop advance. Edison (talk) 03:00, 10 July 2010 (UTC)


 * Medicine also needs to be taken into account, although I believe that WW I was the first war in which mmore death occurred on the battlefield than occurred becuase of injuries suffered during battle. (It might have been WW II, though, I'm not totally sure.) Still, even the stories of the number who survived the trenches doens't tell the whole story.209.244.187.155 (talk) 17:16, 10 July 2010 (UTC)

Bill C-6
What did the Liberal Party of Canada, NDP and Bloc Quebecois say about the Bill C-6 Canada Consumer Product Safety Act? —Preceding unsigned comment added by 74.14.116.80 (talk) 21:54, 8 July 2010 (UTC)

This newspaper report says that the Bill received support from all parties in the House of Commons, but indicates some Liberal Senators voiced concerns about some of its provisions. Most of the material that can be found through a simple Google search indicates that there is grass-roots opposition to the bill, but very little reaction from established political parties, including the three opposition parties you mention. --Xuxl (talk) 13:55, 9 July 2010 (UTC)


 * If you're patient you can read through all of the debates about the bill in parliament and in committies here. After looking through it very quickly, I get the impression that all parties agreed to in principle but that a bunch of little things were changed by opposition members in the committee stage.  It was killed off when Parliament was prorogued last year, but it has be re-introduced as C-36  —Arctic Gnome (talk • contribs) 20:58, 9 July 2010 (UTC)


 * Bill C-6 was the reincarnation of Bill C-51, on which we do have an article. ~ A H  1 (TCU) 15:33, 11 July 2010 (UTC)