Wikipedia:Reference desk/Archives/Humanities/2019 December 11

= December 11 =

Each of the 48 states and the District of Columbia in the US
Is there a simple way to say “each of the n states and the District of Columbia in the US” (where n stands for the number of states at the given time)? I'm asking because that complicated construct makes the first sentence of Ecological fallacy much harder to parse. ◄ Sebastian 03:25, 11 December 2019 (UTC)
 * How about Continental United States? ←Baseball Bugs What's up, Doc? carrots→ 10:42, 11 December 2019 (UTC)
 * At the present time, "Continental" would include Alaska; to exclude it you would use Contiguous United States. At the time of the census referenced in the linked article, Alaska wasn't a state, but it was part of the United States, so I don't know if the same terminology applies.  Although I'd suggest checking the actual source to make sure what was actually claimed.  The census included Alaska and Hawaii, even though they weren't states, so it might be worth checking that they actually were excludied from the study. Iapetus (talk) 11:40, 11 December 2019 (UTC)
 * Yes, "contiguous" would be better once Alaska became a state. As to censuses, many American territories-not-yet-states conducted censuses throughout their histories. ←Baseball Bugs What's up, Doc? carrots→ 11:58, 11 December 2019 (UTC)
 * Maybe not say it at all? The reader doesn't really need to know in order to understand the paradox:

"In a 1950 paper William S. Robinson compared the illiteracy rate to the number of immigrants within the United States. He showed that the greater the proportion of immigrants, the lower the average illiteracy, but that immigrants were on average more illiterate than native citizens."


 * then go on to state the correlation was at the state level and give the numbers.&mdash;eric 12:51, 11 December 2019 (UTC)


 * If you're trying to say "the 48 states and DC" specifically, the terms "Lower 48", "Contiguous United States" and "Continental United States" are all used more-or-less equivalently in common speech to refer to the states, minus Alaska and Hawaii, but plus DC. The only people who don't use them all that way and all equivalently start way too many sentences with "Well, actually..." and can usually be ignored as overly pedantic and out of touch with reality.  If you mean "All the U.S. that is the states and DC" at any given time, "The United States Proper" or "The 50 States and DC" are commonly used.  -- Jayron 32 17:20, 11 December 2019 (UTC)
 * The linked passage actually reads "for each of the 48 states and the District of Columbia in the US as of the 1930 census", and refers to statistics tabulated for each US state and DC. I'll change it to that wording or something similar. --142.112.159.101 (talk) 18:38, 11 December 2019 (UTC)
 * Well actually...... I don't quite understand how "The 50 States and DC" means '"All the U.S. that is the states and DC" at any given time'. It seems to me it's likely to cause confusion when used before there were 50 states, or if there is ever more than 50 states. Did you mean "The X States and DC" where X is however many states there are at the time? That may work, but also requires you to be careful to get the number right. Wouldn't something like "The States and DC" or "All the U.S. States and DC" or whatever be better? Or simple stick with United States Proper. Nil Einne (talk) 15:09, 13 December 2019 (UTC)

Article "Electronic Harassment" in Wikipedia
Wikipedia article "Electronic Harassment" reads that "nothing approaching scientific literature supports the claims of psychotronic weaponry" and Psychotronic Torture is "a conspiracy theory that government agents make use of electromagnetic radiation (such as the microwave auditory effect), radar, and surveillance techniques to transmit sounds and thoughts into people's heads, affect people's bodies". Psychotronic means remote mind and body control. Well known two way brain-computer interface (BCI) that allows computers and other special equipment to influence and write into human brain is, actually, the Psychotronic Weapon. You can read an article in Wikipedia about BCI and decide, whether it is real or not. You can find hundreds articles in scientific journals and mainstream media about different projects that "create" Psychotronic technologies. For example, DARPA finances researchers in 15 American laboratories, including Rice and Brown Universities, in order to develop devices that read mind and write into it. Scientists in Brown University aim to develop a “cortical intranet” of tens of thousands of very small wireless chips that can be implanted onto or into the human cerebral cortex, the outer layer of the brain. The implants, so called “neurograins,” will operate independently, interfacing with the brain at the level of a single neuron. The system will be designed to have both “read-out” and “write-in” capabilities: it will be able to record neural activity and will also have the capability to stimulate it through tiny electrical pulses and manipulate human beings. Rice University got a grant of 18 million USD for the project, Brown University - 19 million USD for this purpose. You can find this information in an article “Rice researchers given $18M grant to develop mind-reading helmet” by Stephanie Whitfield posted on https://www.khou.com on November 15, 2019 and in an article “Brown to receive up to $19M to engineer next-generation brain-computer interface” By Kevin Stacey Posted on https://www.brown.edu/news on July 10, 2017. Just tens (not hundreds or thousands, but tens) researchers are involved in these projects that will be ready in approximately 2022-2023. This information means that these scientists are actually washing ready dirty military technologies, because these technologies are very expensive, cost tens and hundreds of billions (not millions) dollars, have taken efforts of hundreds or may be thousands of scientists for many decades. These Psychotronic equipment and special computer programs (like artificial intelligence) have been created, developed and perfected by military institutions and their contractors on human subjects for decades, including involuntary human subjects, who have never ever given their informed consent to be "guinea pigs" in these classified experiments. Targeted Individuals are people, who claim that they are these involuntary human subjects, who are used in these fascist mind control experimentation. Canadian, American and other governments try to convince that they stopped these mind control experiments on involuntary human subjects years ago, but it is hard to believe governments that have long history of criminal classified experimentation on human beings without their informed consent and reject testimonies of thousands innocent civilian people, used against their will by criminals to create, debug and perfect Psychotronic weapons. Remember names of psychiatrists, psychologists, journalists, researchers, mentioned in Wikipedia articles, and others, who tried to prove that Psychotronic technologies (e.g. two way Brain-Computer interfaces) do not exist, can not exist and all targeted individuals with their solid proofs of being victims of criminal classified non-consensual mind control experimentation are just paranoid, psychotic, delusional or schizophrenic. These specialists are either ignorant and not specialists at all or paid government agents. My question is: How long will we have to read in Wikipedia that Psychotronic Weapons are pseudo-weapons and classified military experimentation upon involuntary human subjects without their informed consent is a conspiracy theory?Galinakurdina (talk) 03:51, 11 December 2019 (UTC)
 * How long? Given how long and confusing that post is, probably for a long time yet. HiLo48 (talk) 05:28, 11 December 2019 (UTC)
 * TLDR, short attention span, sorry. Gleeanon409 (talk) 06:53, 11 December 2019 (UTC)

The post is not the longest and is definitely clear. What does confuse you, HiLo48?Galinakurdina (talk) 07:05, 11 December 2019 (UTC)

Ingrid Jonker
I am looking for a transcript of the poem Die Onverkrybare (The Unobtainable) by Ingrid Jonker. She was a South African poet and part of the Sestigers movement. Please and thank you. Anton. 81.131.40.58 (talk) 11:09, 11 December 2019 (UTC)
 * This it: "Het Onverkrijgbare (Die Onverkrygbare)"? from ik herhaal je&mdash;eric 13:12, 11 December 2019 (UTC)
 * shoot, that is translated to Dutch i think.&mdash;eric 13:39, 11 December 2019 (UTC)
 * That's indeed a dutch translation by Gerrit Komrij, who was a famous dutch poet. PiusImpavidus (talk) 08:59, 12 December 2019 (UTC)
 * here it is in Afrikaans on facebook or google .&mdash;eric 13:50, 11 December 2019 (UTC)

Thank you very much all...


 * Ek koop ’n rok van crêpe-de-chine --      I buy a crepe-de-chine dress
 * Met vingers op die tikmasjien --          With fingers on the typewriter
 * Met goeie kos en ligte dop     --         With good food and light drink
 * Sal iemand gou as vriend ontpop. --       Someone will soon emerge as a friend.


 * Met verse oor die graf en stof   --       With verses about the grave and dust
 * Koop ek vir my ’n rantsoen lof.  --       I buy myself a ration of praise.
 * Jou liefde kan ek myne noem      --       I can call your love mine
 * Met mooimaakgoed en warm soen.   --       With makeup and warm kisses.
 * Kon ek verkry met geld en spel   --       Could I obtain with money and play
 * Die wyster wat die ure tel!      --       the wise one who counts the hours!

Anton 81.131.40.58 (talk) 17:19, 11 December 2019 (UTC)
 * It's usually better to translate die wyster as the pointer, or in this case, the hand of a clock. I'm not a native speaker of afrikaans, but I am a native speaker of dutch, which is closely related. PiusImpavidus (talk) 08:59, 12 December 2019 (UTC)
 * I am a native speaker of Afrikaans. Anton 81.131.40.58 (talk) 09:23, 12 December 2019 (UTC)
 * Komrij also translates wyster as wijzer (hand on a clock) in his Dutch translation (edited next to the original Afrikaans) "Ingrid Jonker — Ik herhaal je" - Amsterdam, Podium, 2000.
 * H.J.J.M. Van der Merwe's re-edition of the S.J. du Toit Patriot Dictionary has hand, index and the Kromhout dictionary translates English hand as Afrikaans wyser/wyster (horlosie) . Regards. Wakari07 (talk) 16:18, 13 December 2019 (UTC)

Upcoming Impeachment process
When this process gets to the Senate and there is a vote, is this done via secret ballot or does each Senator stand up and state his/her vote? 76.71.158.109 (talk) 22:41, 11 December 2019 (UTC)
 * Not secret. There is a roll call. Blueboar (talk) 23:10, 11 December 2019 (UTC)


 * There have been speculations that if there were a secret ballot, there would be far more Republican votes to convict/remove than will probably be the case with an open roll call... AnonMoos (talk) 00:50, 12 December 2019 (UTC)

Then it is very unfortunate that people are in a position of being intimidated out of doing what they believe is "right". I'm all for transparency, but sometime it can be a deficit rather than a benefit. I assume it would be too hard to modify the rules to allow for private ballots. 76.71.158.109 (talk) 02:47, 12 December 2019 (UTC)
 * According to this article, it's theoretically possible to conduct a secret ballot. ←Baseball Bugs What's up, Doc? carrots→ 04:18, 12 December 2019 (UTC)
 * The only requirements set in the Constitution for impeachment trials are that a two-thirds vote is required for conviction, and if the President is being tried, the Chief Justice of the United States presides. This prevents the Vice President—who is also President of the Senate and otherwise would preside—from presiding over a trial that could make them President. Apart from things mandated in the Constitution, the rules of how each house of Congress conducts its business are up to them, which means a simple majority decides. Although some legal terminology like "trial" is used, impeachment is not a judicial proceeding, and its possible consequences encompass only removal from office and disqualification from holding office, not "jeopardy of life or limb", so constitutional protections like the prohibition of double jeopardy are not relevant. --47.146.63.87 (talk) 02:07, 13 December 2019 (UTC)
 * Er, just to clarify, I was going into more detail, not disagreeing. The Senate could hold a secret ballot if a majority of the Senate supported doing so. --47.146.63.87 (talk) 02:09, 13 December 2019 (UTC)
 * I very much doubt if McConnell would allow it to be voted on. ←Baseball Bugs What's up, Doc? carrots→ 04:20, 13 December 2019 (UTC)
 * This just reinforces the point; the power of the Presiding Officer of the United States Senate comes solely from the Senate's own rules, which, again, can be changed at any time by a simple majority. (Some Senators undoubtedly prefer the present state of affairs, where they don't have to actually take stances on anything potentially controversial, but can point fingers at McConnell when asked why X hasn't been voted on by the Senate.) --47.146.63.87 (talk) 06:16, 13 December 2019 (UTC)
 * Just to clarify, McConnell is not the Presiding Officer. That person actually has limited powers, they're job is basically to call out the names of people to signify who's turn it is to speak, announce votes, and other rather banal order things that happen in sessions of the Senate.  They have, in that role, almost no power in terms of deciding anything.  Officially, the Presiding Officer is, in order, granted to 1) The Vice President (current Mike Pence) 2) the President Pro Tempore (currently Chuck Grassley) 3) Some other random schmo who gets assigned to do it for the day.  1) and 2) basically only do so on special occasions, which means it is usually 3) who does the job.  Mitch McConnell is the Majority Leader of the U.S. Senate, and he controls things like committee appointments and sets the legislative agenda; basically he decides what can happen and when it can happen.  He holds no official role within the rules of the Senate, his power comes solely from his leadership of the largest party in the body.  -- Jayron 32 17:10, 13 December 2019 (UTC)


 * 76.71.158.109 -- as far as I know, the Senate could decide that the conviction/removal vote would be held by secret ballot, but the vote to change the rules would itself be held by open roll call, so you've just moved the problem by one procedure... AnonMoos (talk) 23:35, 13 December 2019 (UTC)
 * Except it only takes 3-4 Republicans to fall off their political sword to change the rules (simple majority vote) but would take 2/3 majority (so like 20+ Republicans) to convict. So it wouldn't be the same thing, it's much easier.  That's why it's a strategy being proposed.-- Jayron 32 03:25, 14 December 2019 (UTC)


 * The democratic ideal demands that each Senator's vote, on any matter, be knowable to the voters of their State. —Tamfang (talk) 03:42, 14 December 2019 (UTC)
 * It would take a supermajority of more than 4/5 of the Senate to hold a secret ballot. Article I, Section 5 of the Constitution says that "... the Yeas and Nays of the Members of either House on any question shall, at the Desire of one fifth of those Present, be entered on the Journal." So if 20 out of 100 senators want a roll call, there will be a roll call. On a matter as important as impeachment, it's a safe bet that it will be in the interest of at least 1/5 of the Senate to demand a roll call. --Metropolitan90 (talk) 17:25, 14 December 2019 (UTC)
 * You conveniently ignore the immediately preceding clause which states, and I quote for clarity, "excepting such Parts as may in their Judgment require Secrecy". They may be required to record those votes, but they are not required to make them public. -- Jayron 32 13:41, 16 December 2019 (UTC)