Wikipedia:Reference desk/Archives/Humanities/2016 September 18

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September 18

Standing (law) in US federal courts

According to our article on Authors Guild, Inc. v. HathiTrust, the district court ruled in favor of the defendants, and on appeal, the circuit court largely sustained the original decision but remanded the case to have the district court examine whether the plaintiffs had standing. What's the point? If the plaintiff loses the case, why does it matter whether he had standing in the first place? It's an ordinary district court, not something that will generate significant precedent as far as standing is concerned, and I don't see the practical differences between the results of dismissing the case for lack of standing and the results of accepting the case and ruling for the defendant. Nyttend (talk) 12:40, 18 September 2016 (UTC)

If a case is dismissed on technical grounds, the decision does not set a precedent for future cases - but if there is a determination either way, it does. Wymspen (talk) 14:19, 18 September 2016 (UTC)

Well, a published decision on standing certainly sets as a precedent as to standing doctrine. You're right, of course, that if there's no decision on the merits, there's no precedent on the merits. Neutrality^talk 15:40, 18 September 2016 (UTC)

But district courts don't have the right to establish precedent in the first place; only circuit courts and the Supreme Court can do that. Nyttend (talk) 22:08, 18 September 2016 (UTC)

That's correct. Published opinions by a district court are persuasive authority only, not usually considered binding even in the same district. Of course, they can be highly persuasive sometimes. Neutrality^talk 19:14, 23 September 2016 (UTC)

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• You may be interested in Steel Co. v. Citizens for Better Environment, a 1998 Supreme Court decision in which the court repudiated the once-widely accepted "doctrine of hypothetical standing," in which the courts could assume subject-matter jurisdiction and reach the merits of a claim if they were going to dismiss it anyway. See this summary. Neutrality^talk 15:40, 18 September 2016 (UTC)

The court did not address one issue: The Hathi Digital Library will permit member libraries to create a replacement copy of a book, to be read and consumed by patrons, if (1) the member already owned an original copy, (2) the member's original copy is lost, destroyed, or stolen, and (3) a replacement copy is unobtainable at a fair price. The court questioned whether the plaintiffs had shown standing on this point, and it remanded for a determination. If the plaintiffs could show standing, they then could seek to show that this practice constitutes an infringement. John M Baker (talk) 05:09, 19 September 2016 (UTC)

UK bacon vs NA bacon

In the UK the usual bacon that's consumed is the back bacon. For example, every picture in full breakfast shows back bacon. In US and Canada, the most common type is the streaky bacon.

0. What was the situation like 200-300 years ago? What type of bacon did the early immigrants to North America eat? What type of bacon was typically consumed on the British isles back then?

1. How and when did this difference occur? Pizza Margherita (talk) 23:10, 18 September 2016 (UTC)

1) You have made an assumption here. It could be the other way around. Or perhaps bacon wasn't consumed before the split, and each had their own style right from the beginning. I don't know which is the case, but we need to figure that out before making any assumptions. StuRat (talk) 22:36, 18 September 2016 (UTC)

Thanks, I updated my question.Pizza Margherita (talk) 22:56, 18 September 2016 (UTC)

"Or perhaps bacon wasn't consumed before the split" This link[1] says bacon were consumed in the 1600's. It doesn't say which type though.Pizza Margherita (talk) 23:01, 18 September 2016 (UTC)

[2] says that what the English call bacon now is the same as it was in 11th century although the USDA seems to disagree.[3]. Rmhermen (talk) 02:01, 19 September 2016 (UTC)

Original Research Alert - My childhood recollection of London in the 1960s was that streaky bacon was more commonly seen than now and back bacon was an expensive treat. Perhaps our entry into the EU ("Common Market" as was) brought a flood of cheap factory-farmed bacon from Denmark which brought all the prices down - Danish back bacon was certainly heavily advertised in the 1970s (just to prove my memory faulty, I found this Danish bacon advert from 1969). There also used to be a hybrid called "middle bacon" which formed a horseshoe shape when cooked - it was very popular in transport cafes as I recall. Alansplodge (talk) 10:03, 19 September 2016 (UTC)

That more or less matches with my recollections of life in Cornwall (though mine are a decade later). Streaky was more common than back in the Seventies, and back is more common now. I suspect this is in part due to people thinking that they should eat less fat, and so buying the leaner cuts, and farmers rearing leaner pigs which don't give such good streaky. One can still buy middle - also called "right across" or "through cut", and bizarrely it is often cheaper than either streaky or back. It's worth remembering also that Americans don't butcher their meat in quite the same way as normal people, so exact comparisons between British and American cuts are difficult. DuncanHill (talk) 13:43, 19 September 2016 (UTC)

Wikia has an entry on the history of bacon at their bacon Wiki. Here is an article on the same at the English Breakfast Society (a club I may need to join at some time). Here is another one from the Bacon Scouts (like the boy scouts, I imagine, but greasier). --Jayron32 12:08, 19 September 2016 (UTC)