Wikipedia:Reference desk/Archives/Humanities/2011 May 8

= May 8 =

Richardis of Schwerin-Wittenburg or Richardis of Schwerin or Richardis of Lauenburg
Why is Valdemar III of Denmark's wife given three different names? I understand the first two since it just drop the second place name and leave the first. But the second one makes no sense. Was Lauenburg part of the county of Schwerin-Wittenburg or something? --Queen Elizabeth II&#39;s Little Spy (talk) 02:02, 8 May 2011 (UTC)
 * One possible lead: Both Wittenburg and Lauenburg were, at the time, under the control of the House of Ascania, so perhaps her descent from that family led to the multiple names? -- Jayron  32  02:58, 8 May 2011 (UTC)
 * Her descent from the House of Ascania is extremely remote. Her great-great grandfather was Albert I, Duke of Saxony.--Queen Elizabeth II&#39;s Little Spy (talk) 04:41, 8 May 2011 (UTC)
 * I was just pointing out that Wittenburg and Lauenburg have a strong historical connection; indeed the division of the Duchy of Saxony only happened a few decades before the time period in question, which could have lead to the multiple names. -- Jayron  32  04:54, 8 May 2011 (UTC)
 * Wait I think you are confused. Wittenburg is not the same as Wittenberg. There was never a Saxe-Wittenburg.--Queen Elizabeth II&#39;s Little Spy (talk) 04:58, 8 May 2011 (UTC)
 * Oh, how silly of me. I naturally assumed it was the Wittenberg that was once split from Saxony at the same time Lauenberg was, not Wittenburg.  What a shame, given the similarity of the names.  Sorry!  -- Jayron  32  05:07, 8 May 2011 (UTC)
 * As an aside, it appears that Wittenburg (the "u" one, and the one in question) is quite close, geographically, to Lauenberg. -- Jayron  32  05:10, 8 May 2011 (UTC)
 * Yeah but they were still rule by two different families. Wittenburg was ruled by the Counts of Schwerin.--Queen Elizabeth II&#39;s Little Spy (talk) 07:04, 8 May 2011 (UTC)

Counts of Schwerin
Another question does anybody know why the son of Günzelin VI, Count of Schwerin-Wittenburg, Otto I, Count of Schwerin dropped the Wittenburg in his title. Did the two line reunited?--Queen Elizabeth II&#39;s Little Spy (talk) 07:04, 8 May 2011 (UTC)


 * According to de:Grafschaft Schwerin it looks to me like he ceded the title of Count of Wittenburg to his (presumably younger) brother Nikolaus II.--Zoppp (talk) 12:40, 8 May 2011 (UTC)

Bentley ad - truth or hoax?
I haven't seen anyone respond to the talkpage: Talk:Bentley

Many blogs talk about it like it's real, but Snopes doesn't have an article over it.

Would someone please answer the question in the talkpage? Thanks. --70.179.169.115 (talk) 05:35, 8 May 2011 (UTC)

Presidential Cocaine Use At The White House
It is well known that the 18th President Ulysses S. Grant was a user of cocaine. Did he while in office? And is there any documentation of his using in The White House? Cheers, --i am the kwisatz haderach (talk) 08:59, 8 May 2011 (UTC)
 * It's possible, but to say someone from that era was a "user" of cocaine kind of paints things the wrong way. Cocaine was often prescribed by doctors for pain relief and such, before they realized how addictive it could be and outlawed it. ←Baseball Bugs What's up, Doc? carrots→ 11:33, 8 May 2011 (UTC)
 * Hell, you could even label anyone who drank a glass of coca-cola prior to 1904 as a "user". Blueboar (talk) 12:40, 8 May 2011 (UTC)

When Grant was dying of throat cancer in 1884, cocaine had just come into use by doctors to relieve pain. Grant was given the drug during the last year of his life, years after his time in the White House. See Cocaine: from medical marvel to modern menace in the United States, 1884-1920, by Joseph F. Spillane. —Kevin Myers 12:42, 8 May 2011 (UTC)


 * And just to add: Grant was in office from 1869-1877. Cocaine didn't get used medically until the 1880s. Its popularization in general was not until the 1880s. So it seems rather implausible that he would have used it in office. --Mr.98 (talk) 13:10, 8 May 2011 (UTC)
 * It was used during the American Revolution, given to soldiers prior to amputations. Or so a surgeon re-anactor told me. ←Baseball Bugs What's up, Doc? carrots→ 13:12, 8 May 2011 (UTC)
 * Sure that he didn't mean laudanum?? I don't think there was much useful to be given before major surgery, besides brandy or whiskey, until long after the American war of independence... -- AnonMoos (talk) 00:36, 9 May 2011 (UTC)
 * He specifically mentioned whiskey and cocaine, and I should have questioned the fact that the latter is a lot more potent than the former, but I didn't ask. The surgery, of course, was done without any anesthetic, and while the gory details were objectively interesting, I'll spare you them. ←Baseball Bugs What's up, Doc? carrots→ 01:28, 9 May 2011 (UTC)

And what happened to all the users of it, when it became illegal? 212.169.188.209 (talk) —Preceding undated comment added 19:41, 8 May 2011 (UTC).
 * Well, history tells us that prohibition doesn't stop the usage of a substance, no matter what it is. HiLo48 (talk) 20:41, 8 May 2011 (UTC)


 * That is not true. When Mao instituted prohibition during the Great Leap Forward, drug use in China went from extremely common to nearly eliminated. When alcohol was prohibited in the United States, consumption decreased a bit, but not anything like the reduction in China. It all has to do with enforcement and punishment. If you kill all the users, there won't be many people left to keep using whatever is being prohibited. -- k a i n a w &trade; 21:52, 8 May 2011 (UTC)
 * Yes. The "dirty little secret" about Prohibition in America is that it was a lot more successful than conventional wisdom has it, simply because the people in general were inclined to obey the law. But there was sufficient flouting of the law, and an eager willingness of the Mob to fill that vacuum in the market, that ultimately it was a failure. ←Baseball Bugs What's up, Doc? carrots→ 01:21, 9 May 2011 (UTC)

Was Ibrahim bin Laden one of the bin Ladens flown out of the U.S.?
Ibrahim bin Laden was killed in the May 1 attack. Senator Frank Lautenberg briefly put up a list of the bin Ladens who were allowed out on a flight a few days after the September 11th attacks on a plane frequently used by the Bush administration. But I'm having hell of a time finding the complete manifest, which I know (and the above link says) was released. Was Ibrahim bin Laden on that plane? Wnt (talk) 18:19, 4 May 2011 (UTC)
 * Do you have a source for your claim Ibrahim bin Laden was killed in the May 1 attack? (I'm presuming you mean the operation that killed Osama bin Laden which AFAIK primarily happened on May 2 in Pakistan were the attack actually took place.) All that I've read has suggested and this is supported by Death of Osama bin Laden, the only relatives of Osama bin Laden killed were a son either Hamza or Khalid not Ibrahim (there was suggestion a wife was killed, but this appears to be wrong, in any case Osama's wife would not be known as Ibrahim bin Laden for at least 2 reasons). While the names of all of Osama's children may not be known, of those we do know none appear to be called Ibrahim, Bin Laden family. The only Ibrahim bin Laden appears to be a brother of Osama and I see no evidence he is dead nor that he was in any way in contact or remained associated with Osama. If you don't have a source, please don't claim potentially living people are dead and particularly don't accuse people of being associted with terrorists. Nil Einne (talk) 11:18, 8 May 2011 (UTC)
 * Alright, I deserved that. Every single last fact that has come out about that raid has turned out to be wrong, so when I read that the son was named Ibraham (as mentioned in that article's Talk Archive 2) I should have known it wasn't true.  I still wish I could track down that manifest, just in case the names people finally settle on turn out to overlap. Wnt (talk) 20:40, 8 May 2011 (UTC)
 * Rumors run rampant in the early stages of a high-profile news story, and this one was no exception. And for sure, the White House didn't do a very good job of managing the story. But if you were around in November of 1963, the immediate rumors about the JFK assassination and the various conflicting bits of information made the OBL situation seem low-key. ←Baseball Bugs What's up, Doc? carrots→ 01:25, 9 May 2011 (UTC)

Why have a president?
Is there any reason why Britain would need a president as well as a prime minister when or if it becomes a republic? In the US they don't have a prime minister as well as a president; would Britain truely need a president when its already got a prime minister? Thanks. 2.97.208.37 (talk) 13:06, 8 May 2011 (UTC)
 * It would depend on how they define the roles. In the US, there were bright lines drawn (or attempted to be drawn) between what the legislative, executival and judicial branches do. So perhaps Parliament would become more like the US House of Representatives, with the PM being strictly the majority leader or speaker of the house, and not the "president" as he is currently. ←Baseball Bugs What's up, Doc? carrots→ 13:10, 8 May 2011 (UTC)


 * Presidents and Prime Ministers are very different things. The PM, for example, can get booted out at essentially any point. The President is insulated for the full four year term unless he commits some kind of crime. This little difference in and of itself changes the kind of political considerations those in the roles must take into account. --Mr.98 (talk) 13:12, 8 May 2011 (UTC)


 * No, Britain would not need to have a President if it became a republic... someone would need to be designated Head of state, but that could be the Prime Minister wearing a second hat. However, most Republics think it wiser to separate the legislative function (and powers) of government from the executive function (and powers).  Having a President to head the Executive and a Prime Minister to head the legislature achieves this separation. Blueboar (talk) 13:39, 8 May 2011 (UTC)
 * That wisdom would apply equally well to a constitutional monarchy as to a republic. The UK doesn't have a separation of powers now and there would be no greater need for such a separation if we abolished the monarchy. --Tango (talk) 15:35, 8 May 2011 (UTC)


 * Would the UK ever need an elected leader of a separate executive branch? Not unless drastic changes in the distribution of Parliament's power changed.  The United Kingdom may need a "President" role in the sense that Australia requires a governor general, or the UK requires the Queen—a purely nominal role which solely takes advice from the Prime Minister as to extraordinary constitutional functions, and only acts upon that advice.  For an example, consider the Republic of Ireland.  Fifelfoo (talk) 13:42, 8 May 2011 (UTC)
 * The addition of an (elected) President to replace the monarchy is the standard republican model. It's a checks-and-balances thing. Already, the PM here has more power than the heads of government in other countries, in fact, it's often mooted that the PM has more power over the UK than any other "western" head of government, particularly in terms of control of the military and control of the cabinet. Handing the last parts of power to him would make the concept of republicanism seem more extreme (which is generally bad for its acceptance here). Whilst I can't imagine the Queen using all of her powers, dissolving the government and calling elections certainly could happen in times of crisis. (I'm not sure who the military would listen to, but it would certainly help prevent the PM from using it to take dictatorial control.) So the powers she does hold are meaningful. Grandiose (me, talk, contribs) 15:45, 8 May 2011 (UTC)
 * if the monarcyh was abolished and a head of state wer e to be ste up its likely that the uk would have something like other commonwealth countries such as india and pakistan (with varying degress of power ut largely ceremonial), or even like that of germnay/france (the latter being much stronger for the prez)Lihaas (talk) 16:39, 8 May 2011 (UTC)
 * We wouldn't need the Queen to take unilateral action. Parliament could hold a vote of no confidence. The PM would then we required to resign. If the PM didn't do so, the Queen could step in then to order to enforce the will of parliament. --Tango (talk) 17:22, 8 May 2011 (UTC)
 * You mean she goes around number 10 and punches him until he resigns? I know she's famous for her right hook (that's why she's Queen) but she's in her eighties! 92.28.247.80 (talk) 20:03, 8 May 2011 (UTC)
 * I'd pay to see that! However, it wouldn't be required - if the Queen says he's no longer PM, then he's no longer PM. There is no need for a resignation. --Tango (talk) 20:21, 8 May 2011 (UTC)

Parliamentary governments generally need someone to exercise reserve powers, notably to decide whether to agree to a prime minister's request for a new election or allow the opposition to try to form a government. Without a president, there would have to be some kind of written constitutional law to govern what would happen in such cases, which would be hard to craft. As far as I know, the only parliamentary democracies without separate heads of state and government are Switzerland, which has a unique system of consensus government, and tiny San Marino. -- Mwalcoff (talk) 19:40, 8 May 2011 (UTC)
 * One of the criticisms about Britain's current political structure is that the functions of the Executive Branch are compounded with the Legislative branch; i.e. the people charged with insuring that the laws are followed are also the same people that pass the laws. This criticism has been labeled Elective dictatorship; in that the majority party in the House of Commons essentially has free reign to do whatever it wants, whenever it wants, however it wants, with no checks on its power except its own internal politics.  The "vote of no confidence" option to put pressure on the executive is negligible, since the Prime Minister is the head of the majority party in Parliament; presumably if he didn't have their confidence he wouldn't have been PM in the first place.  -- Jayron  32  19:51, 8 May 2011 (UTC)
 * Ensuring laws are followed is the job of the judiciary, not the executive (although there isn't complete separation of powers there, either). The "elective dictatorship" issue is a significant one, although it is hardly unique to the UK. The US president has the same level of dictatorial power as long as his party has a majority in Congress and they continue to support him. The fact that he isn't himself a member of Congress makes no difference. They only key difference is the existence of mid-term elections in the US. They allow the electorate to strip the president of a lot of power mid-way through his term in office. In the UK, we have to wait until the next general election. --Tango (talk) 20:21, 8 May 2011 (UTC)
 * In the very good short story Five Letters from the Eastern Empire by Alasdair Gray, the narrator eventually finds out that the Emporer is a wooden puppet. There's a lesson there. 92.28.247.80 (talk) 20:26, 8 May 2011 (UTC)


 * @Tango: The general way it works in the U.S. is that congress passes laws, the executive enforces them, and the judiciary makes sure they are being enforced. Think of it this way: Congress the legislative) passes a law that says that says that power plants must filter their smoke to remove sulfur oxides.  The responsibility to actually check that power plants do this falls onto the Environmental Protection Agency, a branch of the executive branch, and answerable ultimately to the President.  When the EPA finds that a company is in violation of the law, they take them to court, a part of the judicial branch.  In the U.K., the roles played by the Congress and the EPA both lie with Parliament.  In the U.S., these roles are defined constitutionally, and part of the framework of how our government is organized.  Federalist No. 51 explains the rationale behind the American system.  -- Jayron  32  20:34, 8 May 2011 (UTC)
 * It occurs to me that the US approach can also tend to reduce the risk or the extent of the "tyranny of the majority" that's the achilles heel of the Parliamentary system. The mid-term elections give Americans the chance to "send a message" when a monolithic government has "gone too far" in the opinion of the electorate. That's what happened this past fall, and it also happened in 2006. ←Baseball Bugs What's up, Doc? carrots→ 23:51, 8 May 2011 (UTC)
 * The U.S. and U.K. systems are quite different in that it is almost always much more difficult for a president to get his agenda through the legislature than it is for a British prime minister, even when the president's party has a majority in Congress. This is because there is very little party discipline in the U.S. compared with the U.K. In 2009-10, the Democrats had the White House, the House of Representatives and enough seats in the Senate to defeat a filibuster. Nonetheless, some of the president's priorities, such as restrictions on greenhouse gases and a "public option" for health insurance were not passed, and the rest of Obama's health plan was only passed with some legal bribery aimed at wavering members of the party caucus. Whether this is a good or bad thing depends on your point of view. -- Mwalcoff (talk) 01:46, 9 May 2011 (UTC)
 * Poland has a president and a prime minister. Vespine (talk) 00:32, 9 May 2011 (UTC)
 * Quite a few countries use the (possibly French-influenced?) dual heads system. Both the Republic of China and the People's Republic of China do as well. --PalaceGuard008 (Talk) 09:55, 9 May 2011 (UTC)
 * I know it's been already linked to above, but what the OP really needs to read is the article Head of state. It has some issues, but should be good enough to explain the concept. Or if it's too much to read, here's a very crude explanation: the head of state is a ceremonial role, an embodiment of a nation. In some countries (called monarchies) the head of state has a monarchical title (emperor, king, prince, sultan, etc.); in others (called republics) the head of state is called president. In most countries this role is separated from the head of government (called prime miniter, premier, chancellor, etc.) who runs the executive branch of government. In some countries these two roles may be rolled into one; for example, the president of the United States is both the head of state and the head of government. — Kpalion(talk) 20:01, 9 May 2011 (UTC)
 * I would disagree with your assertion, Kpalion. The head of state is NOT always purely ceremonial, some countries have both a president(head of state) and a prime minister(head of government), and they both have important roles within the system, and neither is particularly ceremonial or impotent.  I think of France as one example, both the President of France and the Prime Minister of France have clearly defined, but vital, roles in the running of the French Republic.  I would not call the role that the French President plays "ceremonial".  It does happen in some states (like in the person of the President of Israel) that the Presidency is mostly ceremonial.  However, I would not make a statement that any of the three systems (A: powerful President, U.S. style, B: divided executive, French Style, or C: ceremonial Presidency, Israel style) represents anything one might call a "norm".  They are merely three different systems and one can find them all at work around the world.  -- Jayron  32  20:18, 9 May 2011 (UTC)
 * You are correct, Jayron, but I did write that mine was a very crude explanation and that more detail (including exceptions and intermediary forms) may be found in the article. — Kpalion(talk) 18:45, 11 May 2011 (UTC)


 * As far as I can see the role the Queen plays in UK government is simply to sign everything that is put in front of her. A waxworks dummy with a rubber stamp would have much lower running costs. You could employ an actress on the minimum wage to do all the ceremonial stuff. 92.15.20.127 (talk) 20:42, 9 May 2011 (UTC)
 * Then you, sir or madam, know nothing of the matter. (Not that I'm a monarchist, mind you.) --   Jack of Oz   [your turn]  21:56, 9 May 2011 (UTC)
 * A similar system works very well in Disneyland. And can anyone supply a single instance of the Queen refusing to sign anything put in front of her? 92.15.3.59 (talk) 10:13, 10 May 2011 (UTC)
 * It's not quite what you're looking for, but the Governor General of Canada (i.e. the Queen's local stand-in) has either refused or placed conditions on signing paperwork. Matt Deres (talk) 10:37, 11 May 2011 (UTC)

Ontario Legislative Assembly seating plan
I notice that the current seating plan is much shorter than the past seating plan from the eighties and ninties. Were there some renovation going on? I mean the number of seats. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 65.92.150.27 (talk) 16:43, 8 May 2011 (UTC)

"Phoenix Four" report (UK)
Does anyone know if the 800-page report about Phoenix Venture Holdings and what they did with Rover cars is available to download anywhere? The report is described here http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/business/8250252.stm and elsewhere but I have not been able to find the usuial download page link. THanks 92.28.247.80 (talk) 20:00, 8 May 2011 (UTC)
 * Is it this? My computer won't let me download it. --TammyMoet (talk) 11:46, 9 May 2011 (UTC)
 * Have removed the end space from the URL. 92.29.117.251 (talk) 20:14, 9 May 2011 (UTC)
 * That is it - and Tammy's URL has a space (%20) on the end, which is why it's not working. 80.254.147.84 (talk) 19:16, 9 May 2011 (UTC)

Thanks, that is volume 2, 459 pages. That made it easy for me to find volume 1 here: http://www.bis.gov.uk/files/file52782.pdf 92.29.117.251 (talk) 20:14, 9 May 2011 (UTC)

Why did Soviet ideology reject the steady-state theory and what was their alternative?
Soviet official ideology led to the rejection of the Big Bang cosmology as being a secular version of Creationism. However according to most sources "In fact, official Soviet astronomy rejected categorically both big bang and steady state cosmologies. Both were seen as equally absurd and idealistic." Why did the Soviets reject the steady-state model? And what was the 3rd alternative option, that they proposed as the solution? --Gary123 (talk) 22:03, 8 May 2011 (UTC)


 * I think they rejected any theory of an expanding universe. I haven't been able to find any particularly good sources, but from a little googling it seems that they preferred Einstein's original formulation of general relativity with a cosmological constant stopping any expansion or contraction. How they squared that with observed red-shift of distant galaxies, I don't know. --Tango (talk) 22:55, 8 May 2011 (UTC)


 * "Aging photons" was a theory put forward, it seems - a bit odd, but you can construct something that fits if you try.
 * Two articles (on JSTOR, unfortunately) - Soviet Cosmology and Communist Ideology, 1955, and Soviet Philosophic-Cosmological Thought, 1958. The required premises seemed to be that a) the universe was infinite; b) the universe was eternal (would exist forever, had always existed); c) all matter and energy is infinite and inexhaustible, and has existed forever; d) the universe cannot mechanically "run down"; e) we cannot extrapolate physical laws from local research to the universe as a whole. Shimgray | talk | 23:09, 8 May 2011 (UTC)


 * Point (e) is due to dialectical materialism, the Marxist-Leninist philosophy of science. --Mr.98 (talk) 01:07, 9 May 2011 (UTC)


 * Ideology in the Soviet Union, while highly synchronised, was never homogenous or unitary. Some major theoretical approaches to the Soviet Union emphasise the necessity of synchronising ruling class ideology within the Soviet Union.  The papers cited by Shimgray come amid a particularly heightened moment of ideological conflict within the Soviet ruling class.  Largely this period saw remains of high Stalinism, combined with a heavy and light industry line debate within the Soviet Union.  During the middle of this period both the "heavy" line experiment in Poland and the "light" line experiment in Hungary failed, leaving to civil unrest and revolution in both countries.  Subsequently, the anti-party group in the Soviet Union (heavy line Stalinists) were publicly discredited.  Given the importance of maintaining a high level of agreement amongst the ruling class about ideology, some areas of academic research were fundamentally compromised by the need for the ruling class for an internally consistent ideology.  Ask the Leningrad avant garde literary circles in the late 40s about whether knowledge or political-economic interests of the ruling class came first? Fifelfoo (talk) 23:42, 8 May 2011 (UTC)


 * In any case, from what I remember reading, most areas of mathematics and physics got off with relatively light ideological supervision (especially after Stalin launched his crash atom-bomb effort). Mathematicians and physicists sometimes had to pay lip service to certain abstract dialectic principles, or issue general blanket condemnations of certain Western schools of thought that the Soviet government disapproved of, but this usually didn't significantly detract from their ability to present their research.  I guess that grand cosmology might have been an exception because it had far more implications for philosophy and views of man's place in the universe than it did for useful weapons research... AnonMoos (talk) 00:27, 9 May 2011 (UTC)


 * I suspect that Mathematics was fortunately abstruse enough to avoid too much Party scrutiny; and as you note, physicists got the bomb connection, which helped in some ways (while imposing new difficulties in others). Astronomy appears to have been hit particularly hard by the purges, though I don't know enough about that to know if that is just bad luck or because of some sort of good reason. In the abstract, I would expect them to have problems: 1. their work has very little obvious application here on Earth for the most part, 2. it easily touches on matters of grand philosophy or religion, 3. much of the information is popularizable enough that a Party philosopher hack would be able to take aim at it (unlike, say, pure mathematics). These sorts of things were hallmarks for trouble during the Stalin period. --Mr.98 (talk) 01:07, 9 May 2011 (UTC)


 * The book Terror and Progress USSR: Some Sources of Change and Stability in the Soviet Dictatorship by Barrington Moore, Jr. contains an interesting account of Soviet control over the sciences until about 1953 (the book was published in 1954). The main areas of physics and mathematics under attack were Linus Pauling's resonance theory in physical chemistry (not pure physics), and certain aspects of statistical mathematics (by the enemies of Vasily Sergeevich Nemchinov).  Any kind of fundamentally indeterministic or Copenhagen interpretation of quantum mechanics was strongly antithetical to the Soviet philosophy of science, but working scientists in the Soviet Union ca. 1950 made frequent use of the equations of quantum mechanics without suffering any reprisals.
 * It seems that both areas with philosophical implications (e.g. cosmology) and also areas with high-stakes practical implications (e.g. agricultural science) could attract ideological interventions... AnonMoos (talk) 14:07, 9 May 2011 (UTC)