Wikipedia:Reference desk/Archives/Humanities/2016 December 2

= December 2 =

Another abortion question
Can the following two bits of information be verified? According to here Beginning of human personhood,the beginning it says "The indication of these objects itself seems to indicate that they are aberrations from nature,rather than the norm." And the next bit of info that needs to be verified is that the unique genetic identity of the zygote has been challenged. I'm not able to verify these myself. Thanks — Preceding unsigned comment added by Uncle dan is home (talk • contribs) 06:10, 2 December 2016 (UTC)


 * The first statement is probably unverifiable. The truth is that the rate at which non-zygote objects are generated by human sperm-egg interactions is unknown. Estimates have been made, but who knows. You also get to the question of aberration and normal. It is not known why some zygotes do not implant. They may be defective in a way that is not understood. Now, these are actually probably more numerous than viable zygotes, so by a certain definition, the normal outcome of fertilization is spontaneous abortion, and live human infants are the aberration. As to the challenge of the unique genetic identity, it's worded in a clunky fashion, which is part of the problem. No one is challenging that a new zygote statistically almost certainly has a unique genetic profile as compared to its parents or anyone else who has ever existed. That is not being challenged. Rather, the writer of that statement is suggesting that people have challenged that feature as an essence of personhood, on the basis that individual gametes are also genetically unique, but not argued to be people. It would be trivial to produce a reference for the fact that gametes are also almost always genetically unique, but what you want is a reference to someone making an argument that this matters in the context of a personhood/abortion debate. Someguy1221 (talk) 07:40, 2 December 2016 (UTC)

Conchita Wurst: "Gehen Sie Wählen!"
Is there an online transcript of the German text for this video message by Conchita Wurst calling on Austrian citizens to vote (again) in their country's presidential election and presenting the significant differences between the two candidates? I'd also appreciate a transcript of the English translation (appearing as subtitles in the clip to which I linked here). This is to expand the Conchita Wurst page here and for WP projects in other languages. -- Deborahjay (talk) 13:04, 2 December 2016 (UTC)


 * There are tools to download Youtube subtitles. Just google 'download youtube subtitles' and pick your favorite. I've never have any need for doing it, so I can not recommend a concrete one. --Llaanngg (talk) 14:50, 2 December 2016 (UTC)
 * The YT clip has both english and german subtitles--click the sprocket (settings) icon to choose which language you want. Both sets of subtitles appear to have been done by humans, unless machine transcription has gotten a heck of a lot better recently.  50.0.136.56 (talk) 22:59, 2 December 2016 (UTC)
 * I checked the German subtitles, and they were most certainly done by a human being, because in addition to hearing the words correctly and using correct spelling, grammar and punctuation, they also prove they understood the content by shortening the text a bit without really changing the message (for example, within the first 20 seconds the subtitles omit the words "dazu" and "in Zukunft", and replace "so viele Menschen als möglich zur Wahl gehen" with "möglichst viele Menschen wählen"). So it's not a verbatim transcript (just like subtitles in movies). ---Sluzzelin talk  23:09, 2 December 2016 (UTC)

European Coups
In post-WW2 Europe, which countries have experienced changes of government via coups / armed rebellions / revolutions, etc.? I think a number of the Eastern European countries rebelled against Communist control, and there have been wars in some of the Balkan countries. I don't think there have been coups or armed rebellions in any of the Western European countries since WW2, but I'm not entirely sure. Dragons flight (talk) 17:13, 2 December 2016 (UTC)


 * Carnation Revolution, a bloodless coup in Portugal in 1974.Loraof (talk) 17:18, 2 December 2016 (UTC)
 * If you count a war of secession, there's the Kosovo War. (Sorry, you already mentioned the Balkans.) Loraof (talk) 17:20, 2 December 2016 (UTC)


 * The coup known as the May 1958 crisis led to the collapse of the French Fourth Republic and the return of Charles de Gaulle with the formation of the current French Fifth Republic. A second coup, by many of the same leaders, also sought to depose de Gaulle three years later (see Algiers putsch of 1961), but it failed.  Still, the 1958 coup toppled a Western European government and installed a former military leader.  Checks all of the boxes for a successful coup. -- Jayron 32 17:29, 2 December 2016 (UTC)


 * (E/C) We have articles at List of coups d'état and coup attempts by country and List of coups d'état and coup attempts, which is chronological, to help your research. Matt Deres (talk) 17:28, 2 December 2016 (UTC)
 * That's very helpful. Thank you.  Dragons flight (talk) 14:04, 3 December 2016 (UTC)


 * There were a couple of military coups in Greece, in 1967 and 1974, and one in Cyprus in 1974. See Greek military junta of 1967–74 and 1974 Cypriot coup d'état. --Xuxl (talk) 21:34, 2 December 2016 (UTC)
 * Spanish transition to democracy (1975) after the death of Franco, involving an attempted coup followed by elections. 50.0.136.56 (talk) 01:10, 3 December 2016 (UTC)


 * Of the revolutions that ended Communism in Europe, only the Romanian Revolution was actually a violent coup of the type you're imagining. Czechoslovakia had the peaceful Velvet Revolution (and Velvet Divorce), the Baltic states had the Singing Revolution, East Germany had the Peaceful Revolution, Poland had Solidarity and first democratic election, and so on. There was an attempted Communist counter-coup in the rump Soviet Union, but that failed and essentially led to the formation of the modern Russian Federation. Smurrayinchester 10:52, 5 December 2016 (UTC)
 * The violence in Lithuania came from the Russians, the BBC reported 13 Lithuanians killed and 140 injured on 13 January 1991 as Soviet troops attempted to retake the state radio station in Vilnius. See January Events (Lithuania).  Alansplodge (talk) 13:40, 5 December 2016 (UTC)

ID cards
In the USA, are ID cards issued by a state government considered the property of that state, or the property of the identified person? --M @ r ē ino 20:39, 2 December 2016 (UTC)
 * I just looked at my California drivers license and it doesn't say anything about it belonging to the state. But I know that the police will confiscate it if they find you driving around with a suspended or expired one.  50.0.136.56 (talk) 01:13, 3 December 2016 (UTC)
 * When I first got my driver's license, the Rules of the Road stated that the police taking the license was "in lieu of bail". Driving is a privilege rather than a right, and each state makes its own rules about that document. ←Baseball Bugs What's up, Doc? carrots→ 03:48, 3 December 2016 (UTC)
 * My Virginia license is like California's, and ditto with my Ohio license; when I moved here, I phoned the license bureau back in Ohio to ask if I had to return the driver's license, the license plates, etc., but the deputy registrar told me that I was free to keep them. I'm guessing that the confiscation thing is exactly that — confiscation — and not merely repossessing a piece of state-owned property, but I can't prove that.  Nyttend (talk) 03:58, 3 December 2016 (UTC)