Wikipedia:Reference desk/Archives/Humanities/2016 August 11

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August 11

Take home pay comparison map

Is there a site where I can enter my salary and marital status and it gives me a map of North America with my hypothetical take-home-pay if I was living in each of the states and provinces? Crudiv1 (talk) 01:17, 11 August 2016 (UTC)

Is "martial" status a Freudian slip? Every state or province with an income tax (which is probably most of them) would have to be coded in, as well as the Federal in the respective countries. ←Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots→ 01:34, 11 August 2016 (UTC)

Either status means that combat pay should be included. :-) StuRat (talk) 03:03, 11 August 2016 (UTC)

Thanks, fixed the typo. Crudiv1 (talk) 01:36, 11 August 2016 (UTC)

I googled the subject "take home pay calculator", and one option (not surprisingly) is Intuit's calculator.[1] They are, of course, the owners of the TurboTax software. ←Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots→ 01:37, 11 August 2016 (UTC)

That site only does one state at a time. I'm more interested in comparing the differences between the various states and provinces. Crudiv1 (talk) 01:57, 11 August 2016 (UTC)

You might find something helpful in Google Public Data Explorer.—Wavelength (talk) 05:07, 11 August 2016 (UTC)

Mary of Baux-Orange

How did Mary of Baux-Orange died? It said in her article she disappeared on 14 October 1417 in Orange. Does it mean she disappeared from written record or that she was kidnapped and never heard from again (or something like that)?--The Emperor's New Spy (talk) 02:57, 11 August 2016 (UTC)

Given that it's also saying died in 1417, it is implied that she was likely murdered and the body never found. ←Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots→ 04:20, 11 August 2016 (UTC)

?? That's not implied at all. The English article was translated from the French Wikipedia, which also says "disappeared", but that's a fancy way of saying she died in French. I haven't found a particularly good source yet, but it appears that she left a will, and that she died or was buried in Lons-le-Saunier. She just died, no murder necessary. Adam Bishop (talk) 11:47, 11 August 2016 (UTC)

Then she didn't "disappear", she just "died". ←Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots→ 21:16, 11 August 2016 (UTC)

There's an obscure term for this; you probably haven't heard of it. Adam Bishop (talk) 21:59, 11 August 2016 (UTC)

(And the French list, before you rush to tell us that "disappear" isn't on the English one.) Adam Bishop (talk) 22:01, 11 August 2016 (UTC)

As you noted, "disappear" is not in the English list. It must have disappeared. In normal English usage, "disappear" usually implies suspicion of having been abducted and probably murdered, not dying in general. EO makes no mention of it to mean "conventional" dying.[2] It's the wrong term for the English-language version of the article. Maybe it could be corrected. ←Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots→ 13:08, 12 August 2016 (UTC)

Source that she died: "Jean III de Chalon-Arlay épousa Marie des Baux, princesse d'Orange, qui lui apporta la principauté d'Orange. Cette dame mourut en 1417 ; elle fut inhumée dans l'église des Cordeliers de Lons-le-Saunier." [3] I'm sure you're right about the mistranslation from French. The same wording is used in her husband's article. 184.147.126.239 (talk) 12:28, 11 August 2016 (UTC)

Private military companies banned under the Russian constitution

On Wednesday, Britain-based Sky News reported that a private military company called 'Wagner' — illegal under the Russian constitution — has been recruiting hundreds of men and flying them down to Syria on Russian military transport planes.[4]

Private military companies are banned under the Russian constitution.[5]

Is this actually true?

I did a full text search of the the Russian constitution and these are the only lines containing the word "military":

Article 83 section h: ...approve the military doctrine of the Russian Federation;

Article 89 section c: ...decorate with state awards of the Russian Federation, award honourary titles of the Russian Federation, higher military and higher special ranks;

Article 59 part 2: A citizen shall carry out military service according to the federal law.

Article 59 part 3: A citizen of the Russian Federation shall have the right to replace military service by alternative civilian service in case his convictions or religious belief contradict military service and also in other cases envisaged by the federal law.

Crudiv1 (talk) 04:33, 11 August 2016 (UTC)

Article 208 - Organization of an Illegal Armed Formation, or Participation in It "1. Creation of an armed formation (unit, squad, or any other group) that is not envisaged by a federal law, and likewise operating of such a formation, shall be punishable by deprivation of liberty for a term of two to seven years. 2. Participation in an armed formation that is not provided for by a federal law shall be punishable by restraint of liberty for a term of up to three years, or by arrest for a term of up to six months, or by deprivation of liberty for a term of up to five years." Nanonic (talk) 06:55, 11 August 2016 (UTC)

Scott's ship Discovery: the crest

Hello. I just visited Scott's ship the RRS Discovery and noticed that it had a crest flanked by two penguins as heraldic supporters. One is standing upright and one is drooping. Crests of the expedition's newspaper the South Polar Times [6] [7] also have one upright and one drooping penguin, and various statues of penguins in the city of Dundee, where the Discovery is docked, are also drooping.

Does anyone know the symbolism of this? Thanks Gabrielquotes (talk) 10:35, 11 August 2016 (UTC)

The neck embowed and vulning itself with its beak is similar to the heraldric pelican in her piety. The medieval story goes the brood of immature pelicans rebel against their father and the male pelican kills all the brood. Three days later, the female pelican returns to the nest and sits on the dead immatures and wounds her breast with her beak and feeds her blood to the dead immatures reviving them. The pelican in her piety is an emblem of Jesus Christ by whose blood we are healed.
Sleigh (talk) 11:48, 11 August 2016 (UTC)

Like this - however, penguins do actually preen themselves in this way (like this, this and this), so the amateur herald may have simply chosen a naturalistic pose to contrast with the upright one. BTW, just being picky, but your image shows a coat of arms rather than a crest. Alansplodge (talk) 12:17, 11 August 2016 (UTC)

More details about penguin preening is here. Alansplodge (talk) 21:11, 11 August 2016 (UTC)

• I'm wondering what the crest is: an explorer's head in a parka? —Tamfang (talk) 09:45, 12 August 2016 (UTC)

Head erased, in a balaclava.
Sleigh (talk) 10:34, 12 August 2016 (UTC)

Although that might technically be the helmet or helm, the crest being a decorative feature on top of the helm, separated from it by a depiction of a twisty cloth band called a torse. In this case, there doesn't seem to be a crest. Alansplodge (talk) 12:09, 12 August 2016 (UTC)

Looking again, the torse can be seen below the head, so the balaclava helmet is indeed the crest. Alansplodge (talk) 00:05, 13 August 2016 (UTC)

Erased, hm. I wonder why not issuant from the torse. —Tamfang (talk) 10:19, 13 August 2016 (UTC)

I'm certain that this is a tongue-in-cheek effort by a gifted amateur, who either didn't know, or chose to ignore, the usual formalities. Alansplodge (talk) 20:10, 13 August 2016 (UTC)

Internets server hosts, users' illegal content, and US federal criminal liability

My question is about the concepts enshrined by Section 230 of the Communications Decency Act, and how it relates to U.S. Federal laws on distributing Child Pornography, and other federal criminally illegal content.

What particularly caught my interest was the Freedom Hosting case. The owner, whom the U.S. is seeking to extradite from Ireland, is charged, according to our article, with “distributing, conspiring to distribute, and advertising child pornography”.

Now there seems little doubt that Freedom Hosting’s policy was to turn a wilful blind eye to the blatant abuse of their servers to host child porn. They had a formal policy of never looking at what their users uploaded to their servers (barring essential maintenance), and thus became an obvious magnet for all sorts of criminal services, child pornography included. But let’s assume that the defendant himself never personally uploaded any child porn – it was all uploaded by others, and he never touched it or actively encouraged its upload – his conduct was limited to wilful blindness. Now he wouldn’t be able to claim immunity under Section 230 of the Communications Decency Act, as the section specifically excludes federal criminal liability. But as a general legal principle, in what circumstances can an internet host be held liable for federally criminally illegal content (child pornography in this case, but no doubt there are others, such as web pages used to run scams, launder money, or traffick drugs or weapons) uploaded and run by their users, in which the host played no active part whatsoever, beyond providing general server facilities?

And were the Freedom Hosting service's owner, or someone in a similar position outlined above, facing state charges for such conduct, which may well have been the case if the servers had been located in a state in the US, and that state decided to prosecute, could he claim immunity under the communications decency act?

(I don’t think this breaks any policies on legal advice, as it relates to a major news story, not to any personal question as to what is or isn’t illegal, and I don’t think there’s any risk of anyone acting on the answers given. And FYI, I don’t own or run any web servers. But if you have a problem, please hat this rather than removing it, or better yet, simply state your objections without even hatting it, so others can see it and attempt to reach a consensus on whether the question does in fact breach policy. I’ve had people tell me that similar questions crossed the “no legal advice” rule and simply remove them, whilst I see many similar questions get answered with no dramas. The line between "legal advice" and "legal questions" is not always clear). 110.140.193.164 (talk) 15:51, 11 August 2016 (UTC)

Answering this question would be tantamount to providing legal advice.--WaltCip (talk) 16:51, 11 August 2016 (UTC)

• The legal concept, I'm pretty sure, is one of willful negligence (oddly, we don't have an article on it specifically, but rather one on the concept of negligence in general). Negligence means basically failure to take due care. Many aspects of the law are based on "positive action"; negligence is about when one can be held liable for "negative action". That is, laws against theft require positive action: You need to do something to steal something. Negligence means you didn't do something you should have. In this case, the law may require that the people who know or should have known about criminal activity have an obligation to do something about it. --Jayron32 16:52, 11 August 2016 (UTC)

Did you read our Section 230 of the Communications Decency Act#Limits? It specifically mentions state criminal law. There is also [8]. Note that Section 230 doesn't just [9]. Note that the exception for federal criminal statute (edit: in section 230 [[10]]) specifically mentions chapter 110 (relating to sexual explotation of children) of title 18 "Nothing in this section shall be construed to impair the enforcement of section 223 or 231 of this title, chapter 71 (relating to obscenity) or 110 (relating to sexual exploitation of children) of title 18, or any other Federal criminal statute" so it shouldn't be surprising it's considered serious. Nil Einne (talk) 17:09, 11 August 2016 (UTC)

looking this up it appears that the prosecutors claim actual chat logs demonstrating knowledge of the content, and that the sysop also could have been prosecuted in Ireland but they decided not to do so in order to throw him to the wolves in a harsher jurisdiction. It seems like some rather fine legal footwork to not prosecute someone in order to get around a constitutional restriction that Irish people shouldn't be extradited for crimes committed in Ireland. Why exactly the U.S. wants to import people from all over the world to fill its jails is another question, though I think there's a big lobby for keeping them overfull no matter how many are made. Wnt (talk) 15:01, 12 August 2016 (UTC)

Of course. See our article on the Prison-industrial complex. 49.183.165.31 (talk) 10:56, 13 August 2016 (UTC)

Immigration, social issues and diversity among supporters of GOP and Democrats supporters

[link] shows each graph on different topics and they ask only the people who supported candidates before the national convention of each party about those issues.

My question are what do the GOP supporters of Marco Rubio, Ben Carson, Carly Fiorina, Jeb Bush, Rand Paul, Mike Huckabee, Rick Santorum, Chris Christie and Jim Gilmore say about the immigrants, undocumented immigrants, building wall border, impact of diversity, Muslim to be scrutinized, abortion, and same-sex marriage?

Please and thanks.Donmust90 (talk) 17:03, 11 August 2016 (UTC)Donmust90Donmust90 (talk) 17:03, 11 August 2016 (UTC)

• Do you mean opinions of the supporters of those candidates when they were still candidates? Because none of them are running for president anymore, so none of them have any "supporters" as of today. Are you looking for historical poll data from when they were active candidates? Just in general, putting all that aside, a great site for election analytics regarding the U.S. election is Nate Silver's fivethirtyeight.com. I won't say they would be the only site to have such poll data, but if I had to go somewhere first I'd go there first. --Jayron32 17:54, 11 August 2016 (UTC)

Yes, I do mean the opinions of the supporters of those candidates "when they were still candidates". I am curious about what the supporters of Marco Rubio or Jeb Bush said in regards to building a wall border with Mexico or scrutinizing Muslims. Donmust90 (talk) 01:08, 13 August 2016 (UTC)Donmust90Donmust90 (talk) 01:08, 13 August 2016 (UTC)

Post-primaries data is very hard to find as the media are mostly focusing on the present and other studies would take time. It does not seems there should be any real surprise to be expected by the way. In the wake of the Brussels attacks for example, "The candidates' reactions matched the audiences they are courting". --Askedonty (talk) 06:57, 13 August 2016 (UTC)

Is there anything in the U.S. Constitution itself that prohibits implied repeal of parts of the U.S. Constitution?

Is there anything in the U.S. Constitution itself that prohibits implied repeal of parts of the U.S. Constitution? Futurist110 (talk) 21:48, 11 August 2016 (UTC)

Yes. See Article Five of the United States Constitution. ←Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots→ 22:13, 11 August 2016 (UTC)

This is the text of this specific part of the U.S. Constitution:

"The Congress, whenever two thirds of both houses shall deem it necessary, shall propose amendments to this Constitution, or, on the application of the legislatures of two thirds of the several states, shall call a convention for proposing amendments, which, in either case, shall be valid to all intents and purposes, as part of this Constitution, when ratified by the legislatures of three fourths of the several states, or by conventions in three fourths thereof, as the one or the other mode of ratification may be proposed by the Congress; provided that no amendment which may be made prior to the year one thousand eight hundred and eight shall in any manner affect the first and fourth clauses in the ninth section of the first article; and that no state, without its consent, shall be deprived of its equal suffrage in the Senate."

Frankly, unless I am missing something, there appears to be absolutely nothing in this part of the U.S. Constitution that states that judges cannot interpret a U.S. Constitutional Amendment as implicitly repealing a previous part of the U.S. Constitution (even in cases where there was no original intent for this Amendment to (implicitly) repeal a previous part of the U.S. Constitution). Futurist110 (talk) 23:24, 11 August 2016 (UTC)

"...no state, without its consent, shall be deprived of its equal suffrage in the Senate." is the still-active item I'm referring to. The ones about slavery are obsolete, of course. ←Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots→ 00:19, 12 August 2016 (UTC)

Why think I "woodchuck"?

You might also look at the history and decisions preceding and following the passage of the 16th Amendment which has in many cases been judged as repealing the earlier requirement that taxes be apportioned by head (state or census--i.e., not by property per se, or income)

There's also the three fifth's clause, which becomes meaningless after the reconstuction acts. As well as the repeal of prohibition. This seems like a very homeworky question. μηδείς (talk) 01:44, 12 August 2016 (UTC)

This should be taken as a serious question, not just exercise. Remember, the 2009 Honduran coup d'état and the ensuing wave of refugees started over a constitution with this sort of a rat-trap built into it. Wnt (talk) 12:35, 14 August 2016 (UTC)

Anti discrimination lawsuit against Philadelphia schooks

Does anyone know about this one antidiscrimination lawsuit against the Philadelphia school board for 2.3 million dollars? I would like to find out about it on Wikipedia. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 206.87.105.245 (talk) 21:53, 11 August 2016 (UTC)

Wikipedia is not news, but here's an article on it elsewhere. clpo13_(talk) 21:56, 11 August 2016 (UTC)

Have there been any other successful lawsuits along similar lines? — Preceding unsigned comment added by 206.87.108.39 (talk) 00:00, 12 August 2016 (UTC)

Two articles that should be of interest: reverse discrimination and Affirmative action in the United States. Regents of the University of California v. Bakke is one of the major court cases dealing with this matter. Note that the case the OP is referring to has specific facts that make it not particularly representative, such as the former School Superintendent making inflammatory racial remarks, and her ignoring the administrative rules put in place. In contrast, in most cases, discrimination is alleged even though persons are acting in good faith and following established rules. --Xuxl (talk) 09:56, 12 August 2016 (UTC)

This material is relevant to School District of Philadelphia and should be added there, but to do a proper job I'd want to find additional sources. Wnt (talk) 12:44, 13 August 2016 (UTC)