Wikipedia:Reference desk/Archives/Humanities/2011 March 20

= March 20 =

Were Hitler and Stalin ever photographed together?
See topic. Thanks. The Masked Booby (talk) 01:25, 20 March 2011 (UTC)


 * No. They never met officially. There are whacked out theories that they may have secretly walked past each other at one point or another, but it would be a huge stretch of reality to assume someone was standing around with a camera waiting to see if they might walk down the hall at the same time. -- k a i n a w &trade; 01:30, 20 March 2011 (UTC)


 * Hitler and Stalin never met face to face (and so would not have been photographed together). All contact between Russia and Germany was handled by their respective foreign ministers.... or by their armies.
 * That said, there are photographic images that depict them together... all obvious fakes. Blueboar (talk) 01:37, 20 March 2011 (UTC)
 * There must be photographers in the 7th Circle of Hell. Clarityfiend (talk) 02:16, 20 March 2011 (UTC)

Why Libya?
Do any of our Wikipedia articles discuss what exactly motivated the US, Britain, and France to attack Libya? Many governments around the world currently sanction human rights violations like those committed in Libya (countries that come to mind include Sudan, Bahrain, and Yemen), so is it safe to assume that economic or political motivations prompted this attack? If so, what are they? Edge3 (talk) 03:05, 20 March 2011 (UTC)
 * I'm not an expert, but I think that the US, UK, and France were just the best equipped and best prepared nations to take military action. BurtAlert (talk) 03:10, 20 March 2011 (UTC)
 * I think the questioner is asking why attack Libya and not Sudan, Bahrain, or Yemen, which have documented human rights violations. Wikipedia's best evidence are the infoboxes at the top right of the articles. Sudan and Yemen are both republics and Bahrain is a Kingdom whereas Libya was an autocracy (now it is "disputed," according to the infobox). Schyler  ( one language ) 03:24, 20 March 2011 (UTC)
 * "Autocracy" is not incompatible with republics or monarchies. North Korea is an autocratic republic, for example. It's a bit hard to determine how to classify Libya because some people would consider a head of state that is at least ostensibly elected to be a requirement. However, it's not really clear who the official head of state in Libya is under Gadhafi's regime. Gadhafi himself has never been elected to anything. As far as the original question goes, the situation in Libya right now is more serious than the situations in Bahrain and Yemen, with thousands of lives at stake. And Gadhafi's regime has long been detested by both the West and by other Arab countries, making it easier to get international support for military intervention. ASudan is a little different story from Libya because it is an ethnic conflict rather than a widespread uprising against the regime. There is a United Nations/African Union peacekeeping force in Darfur. -- Mwalcoff (talk) 03:48, 20 March 2011 (UTC)


 * Your cynicism is healthy, OP, but it gets much more complicated. And, it's like asking, "Since the right thing doesn't happen all the time, does that mean the right thing can never happen...?" ;)  WikiDao    &#9775;  03:31, 20 March 2011 (UTC)

A similar but related question is - Why now, and not ten years ago? HiLo48 (talk) 03:37, 20 March 2011 (UTC)
 * Ten years ago the Libyan people weren't desperately requesting it. It would have been a "foreign invasion" then -- and there are only so many "Iraqs" and "Afghanistans" that the world (or even just the US alone) can deal with at one time...  WikiDao    &#9775;  03:46, 20 March 2011 (UTC)


 * The right autocrats (ones friendly to the west) are already in charge in Yemen and Bahrain, at least. There's no need to replace them. Adam Bishop (talk) 09:44, 20 March 2011 (UTC)


 * In diplomacy you have to play the cards you're dealt.You can't ask for a more playable hand or a better partner.--Wetman (talk) 09:50, 20 March 2011 (UTC)


 * You can, however, refuse to play in most situations. --Stephan Schulz (talk) 10:11, 20 March 2011 (UTC)


 * The pivotal moment that led to the attacks was when the Arab League voted for it: . As for their motivations, I asked the same question a couple days ago: . StuRat (talk) 10:49, 20 March 2011 (UTC)


 * I've just read this: http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-us-canada-12792637 92.28.241.202 (talk) 14:00, 20 March 2011 (UTC)


 * There's a political dimension to this. Libya is a technically socialist state that has been implicated in terrorist attacks (e.g. the Lockerbie plane bombing), and has been overtly hostile to the western states since the fall of the old kingdom.  Bahrain, Yemen, Sudan, Saudi Arabia and etc. are either kingdoms or puppet republics that have had a much more pro-west attitude (mostly because they know which side of their bread is buttered).  We in the west tolerate autocrats much better than we tolerate socialists, and have historically groomed these tinpot dictatorships to try to maintain a certain stability in the region so that oil production is not affected.


 * Blame it on cold war politics, which generally held that it was better to have a controllable devil wrapped in liberal camouflage in places like this, than to actually construct a liberal society and risk that the people might choose socialist or religious fundamentalist governments. -- Ludwigs 2  14:26, 20 March 2011 (UTC)
 * Britain is a socialist state too. 92.28.241.202 (talk) 15:24, 20 March 2011 (UTC)
 * Read socialism. No, it's not, unless the means of production are publicly controlled. I also doubt that Libya is a "socialist" state in any meaningful name. However, socialism has become a catch phrase for "states unfriendly to the US and not completely laissez-faire", I guess. --Stephan Schulz (talk) 16:02, 20 March 2011 (UTC)
 * A lot of the "means of production" are publically controlled, particularly when you consider that Britain is a service economy rather than a metal-basher. For example our "socialised medicine", and that a large proportion of people work for the government.92.28.241.202 (talk) 19:50, 20 March 2011 (UTC)
 * Countries can't be re-identified as "socialist" (or any other term) just on the basis of woolly generalisations like this. There are indeed parts of the UK (e.g. Liverpool) where a surprising percentage of the population are either employed by the government or primarily dependent on state hand-outs. However, that doesn't change the fact that the vast majority of the economy (as a whole) is not government controlled. For it to be a socialist country, it would have to be the opposite way round. --Demiurge1000 (talk) 20:20, 20 March 2011 (UTC)
 * It wasnt so long ago that one of the two main parties used to sing the "Red Flag" at party conferences. 92.28.250.93 (talk) 22:29, 21 March 2011 (UTC)


 * Indeed, in recognition of the hopes of some of their party members that the party would somehow transform a non-socialist country into a socialist one. And did it happen? Well obviously not, at least obviously to anyone not living in fantasy reds-under-the-bed land. --Demiurge1000 (talk) 07:42, 22 March 2011 (UTC)


 * Qadaffi has managed to build an impressive list of enemies in his 40-plus years in power, both in the east and the west, and it looks like it's payback time, i.e. he's presented an "opportunity" to his enemies, to take some action. People seem to have forgotten that Qadaffi's name was once mentioned in the same tone of voice that later came to be used for Saddam Hussein. Some idea of Libya's image in the eye of the American public at one time can be seen in the 1985 film Back to the Future, where they mention "Libyan terrorists". Not just "terrorists", not just "Arab terrorists", but specifically Libyan terrorists. Than Saddam came along and stole Qadaffi's thunder, so to speak. ←Baseball Bugs What's up, Doc? carrots→ 16:36, 20 March 2011 (UTC)

Qadaffi has accomplished to re-build his image from terrorist to acceptable partner, just to lose all respect from the West when it came down to fight the rebels. Strangely, in his present list of enemies, Arabs are well-represented. That helps the West, since no one is going to accuse them of being Islamophobic. Quest09 (talk) 17:55, 20 March 2011 (UTC)

I suppose the presence of oil in Libya might anything to do with outside countries' interest in its governance. Operation Iraqi Freedom was purportedly called Operation Iraqi Liberation until someone realized the acronym didn't convey the message they wanted. 75.57.242.120 (talk) 04:49, 21 March 2011 (UTC)


 * In the case of Libya, since the oil supply was fairly regular under Qadaffi, it's reasonable to expect that it would be again, if everyone just let him massacre his enemies and regain control. A protracted civil war or new form of government, on the other hand, could both threaten the oil supply.  So, the theory that the "Western interference is to gain control of the oil" doesn't make much sense. StuRat (talk) 15:55, 23 March 2011 (UTC)

World War 3
I often hear people mention how bad the world will be when World War 3 comes along... But in reality, we're already in it; the war of terrorism. It's world-wide, and causing a lot of damage. Wouldn't you agree that this is in fact World War 3?Accdude92 (talk) 04:14, 20 March 2011 (UTC)
 * I've never seen anyone apply that particular term to current events: the term usually applied is the War on Terrorism, and that's even debatable (many of the current series of conflicts are only tangentially related to terrorism). WWIII was usually applied, up until the breakup of the Soviet Union, to a potentially hot phase of the Cold War, which would have indeed been bad.  Acroterion   (talk)   04:19, 20 March 2011 (UTC)
 * No, and to continue to call it a war does the world no good at all. It will be as successful as the war on drugs. HiLo48 (talk) 04:20, 20 March 2011 (UTC)
 * Nope. We're already into World War 7 (I think - I've lost count). Seriously, though, do you think that terrorism is a new phenomenon? Look here for why you are wrong. AndyTheGrump (talk) 04:21, 20 March 2011 (UTC)
 * Not new, exactly, just a large issue now... More so than it appeared in the past.Accdude92 (talk) 04:34, 20 March 2011 (UTC)
 * Even that depends on where you are. In Northern Ireland (and probably Spain, and no doubt other places too), it is less of an issue than it used to be. In any case, 'terrorism' is such a vague concept that it tells you little about anything. As for terrorism causing 'a lot of damage', as the OP suggests, I think this is overstating things - look at what happened to Coventry, Hamburg, or Hiroshima, and at the death-camps and other mechanised mass-murder, and ask yourself if things are that bad? No, they aren't - though it suits some politicians (and arms manufactures etc) to suggest it is. AndyTheGrump (talk) 05:09, 20 March 2011 (UTC)
 * I was going to suggest that the 1970s must have seemed, to people at the time, to have been a hotbed of terrorism, more than the 2000s, due to its seemingly endless series of airline hijackings, the Munich massacre, the Symbionese Liberation Army in America, and the peak of violence in Northern Ireland (see The Troubles) ... but this page shows that indeed terrorism in Israel and in Iraq in the past 15 years, as well as the 9/11 attacks, has really dwarfed the 1970s incidents (according to what the page says is the RAND definition). But 4,500 deaths in a year doesn't compare to the staggering casualty figures of either World War.  Comet Tuttle (talk) 18:16, 21 March 2011 (UTC)

You're not the first to think that the War on Terror is a world war. See Norman Podhoretz, for example, who wrote World War IV: The Long Struggle Against Islamofascism (the Cold War is his WW3). Almost everyone agrees now that the War on Terror was misnamed, even George W Bush. But to have called the war by a more accurate name, like the War against Extreme Militant Islamism, would have been even more controversial, so the euphemistic name was used. Whether this conflict is really a war, or really a world war, or really like the Cold War is debatable, and this isn't the place for that debate. —Kevin Myers 05:24, 20 March 2011 (UTC)

This isn't a question, it's an invitation to debate. 87.114.246.141 (talk) 11:01, 20 March 2011 (UTC)


 * Anyway, world war three was the one against Napoleon, they mean world war 6, and I am sure we will only know it was that once it finishes and we can look back and see just what we have actually achieved. Though, Churchill did say the empires of the future would be empires of the mind, and the opposing sides in this conflict seem to be just such predicted mental empires, with competing views, so maybe. 148.197.121.205 (talk) 14:25, 20 March 2011 (UTC)


 * As far back as 2002 or 2001, Bill O'Reilly (who typically calls it the War on Terror) was saying this was really World War III. The numbering came about because what we now call World War I was called "The Great War" or "The World War" (without a number, obviously) as well as the hopelessly optimistic "The War to End All Wars". Then when a truly world-wide war came along, they tacked a I onto "the" World War, and a II onto the "second" one. It was long assumed that World War III would be a mutually-destructive nuclear war, i.e. what would happen if the cold war went "hot". As Tom Lehrer said in 1965, "If any songs come out of World War III, we'd better start writing them now!" However, history has a way of evolving in different directions than expected. ←Baseball Bugs What's up, Doc? carrots→ 15:48, 20 March 2011 (UTC)

In reality the term World War is more a description about a state of total war between great powers than the scope of such a conflict. There have been only two such conflicts since mechanised warfare was created, and we are not in the third. 130.88.162.13 (talk) 18:22, 20 March 2011 (UTC)
 * If 20 million people die, you can call it a world war. Otherwise it is just various seperate wars or even compared to WWII, skirmishes. --Lgriot (talk) 10:04, 21 March 2011 (UTC)
 * I guess it all boils down to agreeing on a definition of World War. Without having put too much thought into it, I am tempted to suggest at least two factors that should be present for a conflict to fall into the "World War" category:
 * (1) An armed conflict between official nations
 * (2) One or more nations of subsantial economic and military power on both sides of the conflict
 * Introducing an element of scale (ie. number of casualties and geographic spread) would also be helpful, but at least the proposed two conditions rule out concepts like wars against terrorism, aids, drugs etc.... --DI (talk) 11:14, 21 March 2011 (UTC)

first online legal notice in the world
I am looking for info on When and where was the first online legal notice served that was held tenable by the judge

Would appreciate any help —Preceding unsigned comment added by 76.31.252.236 (talk) 19:42, 20 March 2011 (UTC)


 * Quibble: The first online legal notice served that was held tenable (enforceable) by the judge was not necessarily, and I assume was not, the first online legal notice in the world. A giant majority of legal notices are never ruled on by any court, so I expect the first online legal notice was something relatively uncontroversial, like "Copyright (C)1970 by Knuth".  By "online", also, you might want to specify whether you are talking about the Web, or on ARPANet, or over dial-up modem BBSs, etc.  Comet Tuttle (talk) 20:23, 20 March 2011 (UTC)

I am referring to the web —Preceding unsigned comment added by 76.31.252.236 (talk) 20:55, 20 March 2011 (UTC)


 * So not the internet? The internet predated the web by a decade or two. --Demiurge1000 (talk) 22:16, 20 March 2011 (UTC)

Records management - Dutch law
Hi. I have a problem in finding answers to following questions regarding Dutch record and archive law: What information must be registered? (according to law and best practice) What kind of quality is demanded from this registration? What retention period applies? (search for laws or special retention lists) Who uses this information? (for instance: controlling and auditing agency’s)

I should consider those questions in respect to companies such as Energy companies, Telecommunications companies,Banks as financial institutions and public authorities. It is quite hard for me as I speak Dutch only a little. I found some English websites on that topic though,

http://www.dnb.nl/en/about-dnb/question-and-answer/questions-about-banks/index.jsp#faq-2 or http://www.thefreelibrary.com/Archives+and+records+management+in+the+Netherlands.-a057640379 however the don't really go into specifics.

If anyone has some knowledge on that subject or can point me in some direction (I'm not a law student) I would appreciate that. M2tek (talk) —Preceding undated comment added 21:24, 20 March 2011 (UTC).


 * For starters, Dutch wikipedia article Archiefwet (archive law): nl:Archiefwet, I don't have time to translate, but perhaps Google Translate can help. 93.95.251.162 (talk) 14:23, 22 March 2011 (UTC) Martin.


 * Law concerning retention duty of telecom data: nl:Wet bewaarplicht telecommunicatiegegevens .93.95.251.162 (talk) 14:45, 22 March 2011 (UTC) Martin again.


 * How long do companies need to store records for taxes? Site Dutch belastingdienst (tax inspectors):
 * http://www.belastingdienst.nl/zakelijk/ondernemen_administratie/ondernemen_administratie-02.html
 * Language Dutch, clicking on "English" in the upper left corner doesn't do much... 93.95.251.162 (talk) 14:35, 22 March 2011 (UTC) Martin.


 * Standards for keeping telecom traffic data:
 * http://tweakers.net/nieuws/71985/ministerie-ontwikkelt-standaard-voor-bewaren-telecomgegevens.html
 * 93.95.251.162 (talk) 14:39, 22 March 2011 (UTC) Martin.


 * Dutch Data Protection Agency (language:English):
 * http://www.dutchdpa.nl/
 * See also: nl:College Bescherming Persoonsgegevens. 93.95.251.162 (talk) 14:54, 22 March 2011 (UTC) Martin.

Peaceful protesters arrested
http://www.washingtonpost.com/anti-war-activists-arrested-near-white-house-as-they-mark-8th-anniversary-of-start-of-iraq-war/2011/03/19/ABtZbzu_story.html

How can the government arrest peaceful demonstrators? Doesn't that violate the First Amendment rights of freedom of speech and assembly? --70.244.234.128 (talk) 21:47, 20 March 2011 (UTC)


 * See Free speech zone. As with all rights, there seem to be quite a lot of loopholes. --Mr.98 (talk) 22:03, 20 March 2011 (UTC)


 * We had this question the last time this happened, and the arrests were for refusing to stop "blocking the sidewalk." This appears to be the issue again this time. Protesters in this kind of case often seek to get arrested for the attention it brings to their cause. -- Mwalcoff (talk) 22:50, 20 March 2011 (UTC)


 * It should be noted that just because you are protesting something, you do not also get free reign to break reasonable laws, or in other words merely exercising your right (say, freedom of speech) doesn't grant you the right to violate one of my rights (say, freedom of movement) to do so. Police are allowed to disperse large groups of people who are preventing others from, say, walking down the street minding their own business.  People who refuse to comply with a reasonable request (like "Hey, you're all clogging the sidewalk and making it hard for others to get to work.  Break it up so others can get where they need to go") can be arrested for doing so.  -- Jayron  32  23:02, 20 March 2011 (UTC)


 * In general, the trick to making this kind of thing First Amendment compatible is that you arrest whomever is doing it, whatever their political positions. --Mr.98 (talk) 00:54, 21 March 2011 (UTC)


 * And where do you find pro-war protesters to arrest as a compensation? 212.169.189.144 (talk) 01:06, 21 March 2011 (UTC)


 * You can find protesters for anything these days. --Mr.98 (talk) 02:13, 21 March 2011 (UTC)


 * Off-topic pedantry, but I can't resist - it's "free rein", not "free reign", being an allusion to horses, not rulers. AndrewWTaylor (talk) 11:34, 21 March 2011 (UTC)


 * "Once the dictator no longer reigned over them, they had free rein to do as they pleased, as the blessings of liberty rained down upon them." StuRat (talk) 18:56, 21 March 2011 (UTC)

This is part of the reason in the UK at least, a march is a better idea than a static protest. Under UK law, public rights of way must be used for the purpose of "passing and repassing" - in other words, on a strictly legal basis you must keep moving and not stop and block the right of way for others. Exxolon (talk) 19:45, 21 March 2011 (UTC)


 * From the Post report, it sounds like Mwalcoff has it right (though they may have been blocking the driveway rather than the sidewalk). Unfortunately the U.S. media usually makes a point of ignoring protests unless someone gets arrested, creating some motivation for protesters to get arrested for some minimal offense like this.  However, the media coverage is often unreliable, and I know that protesters do get arrested on completely bogus charges when someone wants them out of the way.  For example, at the 1996 Democratic convention they formally charged several leaders with bizarre crimes like a felony charge of throwing a plastic bottle and an animal rights activist accused of punching a horse.  The way it actually worked was that a few hours before the president showed up, the cell phones all went dead and meanwhile the leaders were all rounded up.  Eventually everything was dropped, but only after a long legal action that further drained their efforts. Wnt (talk) 22:57, 21 March 2011 (UTC)
 * As Mwalcoff and Jayron point out, while we have the right to peaceably assemble and protest, that does not mean anytime-anywhere. The protestors are not being arrested for protesting, but for infringing on the rights of others to use public right-of-ways. And certainly getting arrested (usually for disturbing the peace or whatever) is a good attention-getter. ←Baseball Bugs What's up, Doc? carrots→ 23:08, 21 March 2011 (UTC)

AIMAV
What does AIMAV stand for? It's some sort of linguistic organization. Geschichte (talk) 22:23, 20 March 2011 (UTC)
 * I found a book review from 1971 that says this is a "merciful acronym" for the Association Internationale pour la Recherche et al Diffusion des Methodes Audio-Visuelle et Structuro-Globales. A later abstract says it is the Association internationale pour le developpement de la communication interculturelle, but that doesn't fit the letters. Looie496 (talk) 22:50, 20 March 2011 (UTC)