Wikipedia:Reference desk/Archives/Humanities/2009 April 18

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April 18

Which crowns are these with Richard III and family?

The writing is difficult to decipher. Thanks! Catterick (talk) 04:54, 18 April 2009 (UTC)

Do you mean the 6 surrounding the King? If so, we have, from top left, Seyne (Saint?) Edward,(maybe that of Edward the Confessor who was King of England) England, France, Wales, (this one I can't understand), and Ireland. --TammyMoet (talk) 08:12, 18 April 2009 (UTC)

The symbol on the unknown--is that the Scottish thistle? If so, I'd still like to make out the exact lettering. Catterick (talk) 08:26, 18 April 2009 (UTC)

The cross fits with Edward the Confessor with similar arms (although they were made posthumously). - Jarry1250 ^{(t, c)} 10:13, 18 April 2009 (UTC)

I found a different version of this image that is much more legible. Actually the color version you posted here looks to me like a later copy of the black-and-white one, made by someone who didn't really know what they're copying, hence the illegible inscriptions. Anyway, the bottom right crest, which looks more like grapes than a thistle, is labeled "Gascoyn & Gyan", that is Gascony and Guyenne (Aquitaine). — Kpalion^(talk) 13:56, 18 April 2009 (UTC)

Doesn't look at all like a thistle to me, I'd agree it looks more like grapes. Which would make sense as Richard III didn't have any claim to the Scottish crown but did have some claims to the French, or at least French titles. Bottom right is a harp which would imply Ireland. AllanHainey (talk) 17:40, 19 April 2009 (UTC)

The harp clearly says 'Ireland'. --ColinFine (talk) 21:17, 19 April 2009 (UTC)

Just to clarify, I meant, of course, the crest that is on the left hand side from our point of view, or the right hand (dexter) side from Richard's point of view. Describing coats of arms, crests, etc. from the armiger's point of view is a standard practice in heraldry. — Kpalion^(talk) 11:34, 20 April 2009 (UTC)

assignment help needed

I needed some information regarding my assignment. The subject is reagrding commercial law. And the question is based on contracts law ans sale of goods law. The question is as follows:

Brandy lives in the Fiji islands. She is a manufacturer of traditional tapa mats. This particular type of mats is known as “masi”. Brandy sells mats in various colours with the traditional tapa mats or masi being a dark brown colour with dyed woolen edges. After successfully doing business for a few years within the tourism market Brandy decides to expand within the export markets. She subsequently establishes a website advertising the products for sale to overseas markets.

Sima in New Zealand operates a large cultural store where all types of traditional hand made items are being sold. One day while Sima is online she finds Brandy’s website. Knowing of the demand for traditional tapa mats within the Maori community she decides that it would be a good idea to import some of Brandy’s stock for sale in her shop. She particularly likes the variety of bright colours that are being used in the dyed woolen edges.

Brandy sends Sima a contract to sign which includes the following provisions:

1. goods – 100 traditional tapa mats with coloured woolen edges
2. purchase price - $250 per mat
3. Contract terms – in accordance with Sale of Goods Act Fiji
4. shipment terms – CIF
5. delivery date – 90 days from entry into this contract
6. delivery port – Auckland

Before Sima signs the contract she asks if Brandy can deliver the mats for the same price to Christchurch, and states that she wants half of the order to be traditional mats with dark brown woolen edges and half to have coloured woolen edges. Brandy states that there would be an extra charge of $25 for delivery to Christchurch, however, costs would be less for the 50 mats with only dark brown woolen edges. Sima then amends the contract purchase price per mat to “$262.50”, makes no other changes and signs the contract.

In order to secure payment, Brandy is provided with an irrevocable letter of credit from Sima’s bank – Money Bank. In arranging the letter of credit Sima has provided Money Bank with a copy of the contract. Under the Letter of Credit Brandy is required to present the contract transportation documents, clear bill of lading, and evidence of premium insurance coverage before Money Bank will pay.

The mats are delivered to the ship at Suva, and a Bill of Lading is issued for “100 traditional mats”. The sea trip is good and due to fine weather the ship reaches Christchurch a day before the scheduled date. Sima however, has failed to make arrangements for early delivery and the crate containing the mats is sitting on the dock for one night. Unfortunately there is a snow storm on that particular night.

When Sima finally collects the mats about 25 of the brown edged mats are damaged, and the other 50 tapa mats with colourful woolen edges have lost their bright colours and would need replacement with new colourful edges. Sima is furious and immediately rings Money Bank from her mobile phone. She gets even more furious when she is told that Brandy has been paid even though the bank did not collect the importation documents.

Sima then attempts to claim the losses on her insurance. She discovers that the insurance policy is not a premium policy, but a standard policy, and does not extend cover to the mats after delivery.

Advise Sima of her rights and liabilities against the following:

• Brandy
• Money Bank

—Preceding unsigned comment added by Nalini DK (talk • contribs) 07:36, 18 April 2009 (UTC)

You haven't said what the information is that you want. We are not going to do your assignment. (From the top of the page: If your question is homework, show that you have attempted an answer first, and we will try to help you past the stuck point. If you don't show an effort, you probably won't get help. The reference desk will not do your homework for you.)

You might get some useful information from Commercial law, but probably more relevantly from your course textbooks. Incidentally, you have not even said which legal system you are working in: I guess it is New Zealand, but if anybody is to help you, you need to make this clear. --ColinFine (talk) 09:21, 18 April 2009 (UTC)

See 2009 Fijian constitutional crisis - Fiji is in the middle of its 4th and a half coup of recent years and presently has no judges but plenty of police and soldiers. So the answer is...how well does Simi know the Prime Minister of Fiji? Rmhermen (talk) 05:13, 19 April 2009 (UTC)

Do your own homework. AllanHainey (talk) 17:41, 19 April 2009 (UTC)

Genesis - Creation

Have creationists considered the fact that whoever wrote Genesis (as well as other people) probably would not have been able to understand concepts such as cells, genes, etc? Vltava 68 07:38, 18 April 2009 (UTC)

Have you considered the fact that modern creationists are probably unable to understand concepts such as cells, genes, etc. either? — Kpalion^(talk) 12:12, 18 April 2009 (UTC)

Well...that's not true. Lots of "real" scientists are creationists. Do you think Michael Behe doesn't understand those concepts? Also, if the author of Genesis was God, then of course he would have understood cells and genes. Adam Bishop (talk) 13:35, 18 April 2009 (UTC)

Adam Bishop, given the article to which you refer, it is hard for most of us to accept that the individual named does understand cells and genes in the same way that almost all accredited scientists understand them. To go back to Kpalion Vltava's question, I would direct him/her to the various articles on Creationism, Intelligent design, Book of Genesis and their follow-up reading for information on what creationists might have considered. // BL \\ (talk) 15:32, 18 April 2009 (UTC)

Well, he probably knows more about cells and genes than I do! Adam Bishop (talk) 16:34, 18 April 2009 (UTC)

Definition of "expert": Someone who knows more about a subject than I do.  :) -- JackofOz (talk) 21:12, 18 April 2009 (UTC)

AB's second point still stands, though- if God was the true writer of Genesis, then obviously he'd understand genes, etc. So if creation (and divine inspiration) are correct, there's no problem. And if they aren't, then there's no problem either. So regardless of the answer (I'm presuming the answer to the OP's question is "yes", by the way, as most creationists likely aren't crackpots... just the ones you hear about all the time are. Sane people don't make for good news), it doesn't really matter. --Alinnisawest,^{Dalek Empress} (extermination requests here) 22:06, 18 April 2009 (UTC)

There are those who think all creationists are crackpots, by definition; however, even if that opinion were true, it would have no bearing on what creationists might have considered in coming to their conclusions. The answer will more likely be "yes' for some, "no" for others and "who knows what they thought about?" for the rest. // BL \\ (talk) 22:16, 18 April 2009 (UTC)

An Answers in Genesis-style answer would be, "yes, of course the humans who wrote these things out originally didn't know about modern scientific concepts. However their words were guided by the hand of God, who understands them better than even our clunky human metaphors do. Why would you assume that it matters in this case? Whether or not the people who wrote down Genesis originally understood modern cell biology hardly affects whether their overall scheme for the history of creation was true or not." etc. etc. I'm not a Creationist but I don't find the question of who knew about cells to have any real importance to discussing its validity. --98.217.14.211 (talk) 03:14, 19 April 2009 (UTC)

To my mind (personal opinion alert) a better question is whether those reading Genesis would have been able to understand complex scientific concepts. Even assuming complete divine inspiration for Genesis 1, it's doubtful that an omnipotent God would have chosen to give a 20th Century scientific account of the universe that would have been utterly mystifying to all its readers for 1900 years (and might be considered trivially simple by those in the 22nd Century). DJ Clayworth (talk) 16:17, 20 April 2009 (UTC)

By the way, why does it seem that most young earth creationists are conservatives? Vltava 68 08:49, 22 April 2009 (UTC)

In the US at least, the conservative movement/Republican Party is composed of two primary groups:

1) Economic conservatives, who believe in minimal government, low taxes, and little government regulation.

2) Religious conservatives, who believe in "Old Testament" Christian values, like capital punishment. This group also tends to read the Bible literally. On the other hand, people who believe in the "New Testament" and the teachings of Christ, like forgiveness, charity, and love for all, tend to be liberals/Democrats and read the Bible more as metaphor than literal truth. StuRat (talk) 21:34, 23 April 2009 (UTC)

What are the chances of a nuclear war in the next 100 years?

How have future historians projected it?--Whargarbl (talk) 12:06, 18 April 2009 (UTC)

See Doomsday Clock. — Kpalion^(talk) 12:20, 18 April 2009 (UTC)

Sorry, our nuclear-powered WP:CRYSTAL ball is glowing just a bit too brightly for me to see the answer. (P.S. What's a future historian?) Clarityfiend (talk) 00:17, 19 April 2009 (UTC)

The only time I've ever heard the phrase "future historian" is to refer to a hypothetical historian who is literally in the future, looking back and studying us. User:Whargarbl is probably thinking of a Futurist.

Seriously, nobody reputable is going to venture a guess that far ahead. Humans could be extinct or god-like by then. Clarityfiend (talk) 00:32, 19 April 2009 (UTC)

Yeah. About the best we can say is that the odds are less than 50%: humanity surviving for 100 years has been given 50% odds by a few authorities, and 50% is (following Bayesian orthodoxy) the position of maximum ignorance regarding that issue. Humanity could be extinguished by any number of disasters, so to avoid the conjunction fallacy, we get <50%. (I assume that extinction and nuclear war are related; but even if they're independent variables, humanity has to exist for nuclear war to happen, so the odds are still necessarily reduced.) --Gwern (contribs) 02:47 19 April 2009 (GMT)

The odds approach 100% that some group will detonate a nuclear device to harm their enemy in the next 100 years. This does not mean that there will be a global thermonuclear war with thousands of hydrogen bombs fired back and forth by superpowers, which would be one definition of insanity. Edison (talk) 21:27, 19 April 2009 (UTC)

The problem is, 100 years is a long time. Think about how different the world was in 1909 versus today — the idea of a "world war" hadn't even been broached yet. It's very hard to make any kind of reasonable predictions about 100 years from now. It could be some sort of beautiful peaceful Star Trek universe or it could be post-apocalyptic. The real truth is probably somewhere between the two poles, as usual. --98.217.14.211 (talk) 00:27, 20 April 2009 (UTC)

The Star Trek universe was peaceful ? Not if you were a new ensign in the landing party at the start of the show, it wasn't ! StuRat (talk) 21:12, 23 April 2009 (UTC)

Why is there no article Islam and communism?

Surely the links between these two topics are worthy of exploration?--Whargarbl (talk) 12:41, 18 April 2009 (UTC)

Maybe you're the first person to have got around to thinking about it. There has to be a first; and we're still - after all this time - creating hundreds of new articles on significant topics every day of the week, many of which would cause various people to be surprised that we didn't already have something on that. The thing is, it's not like a bunch of terribly self-important people sit around and decide which articles should be written and which not. No, the world community decides, and in particular, the decision to commence any one article is a decision by a single person - you. There are checks and balances, of course, and all articles are subject to scrutiny and challenge in regard to notability. So, the opportunity is now available to you - or anyone reading this - to create the article. Best wishes, and I look forward to reading it. -- JackofOz (talk) 12:56, 18 April 2009 (UTC)

Or you could start by expanding this very short section: Communism and religion #Communism and Islam. — Kpalion^(talk) 13:12, 18 April 2009 (UTC)

Indeed, one could also explore the relationship between Communist states and Islamic ones as well. The Suez Crisis may be of particular interest to one writing such an article. Also, the article essentially already exists at National communism. Read it and see... --Jayron32.talk.contribs 20:09, 18 April 2009 (UTC)

Islamic socialism might also be useful. [[Sam Korn]] ^(smoddy) 11:27, 19 April 2009 (UTC)

Status of post-War German states

Whta levels of autonomy did German states have while the future of post-World-War-II Germany was being discussed. Our article on the coat of arms of Lower Saxony has these 'dubious' statements:

• After World War II, the province of Hanover became an independent state
• Brunswick, which was an independent state

and I'm wondering here whether the confusion here is simply over the use of the word state as a translation of land (the German word) rather than Sovereign state. Though, German 'provinces' (Laender) have always had more autonomy. Could someone clarify the position here (anyone who knows should edit the article really)? Grandiose2 (me,talk,contribs) 13:15, 18 April 2009 (UTC)

I don't doubt those statements at face value, given Germany's history as a nation. The fact that there would be one German state that was uniquely sovereign over all German lands has really only existed since the 20th century. Various independant states existed throught Germany in all of history; it is not surprising that in the chaos after World War II, any of a number of short-lived Independent states did not "spring up" after the war. Even during the so-called "German Empire" period, many constituent parts of the Empire, such as the Kingdom of Bavaria, operated essentially independently from the Prussian-dominated empure, and were de-facto independent states in all but name. To answer the question about Hanover specifically, there had been a Kingdom of Hanover from 1814-1866 (which was in personal union with the Kingdom of Great Britain until 1837). AFter 1866, it was administered from Prussia as the Province of Hanover and was only formally integrated into the new Federal West Germany in 1946/47. --Jayron32.talk.contribs 20:07, 18 April 2009 (UTC)

There are two obvious places where confusion could arise - "independent" and "state". In DE wiki article "selbstständig" ('self-standing') isn't used to mean 'independent' as in 'worthy of UN recognition', but 'independent' as in 'extracted from governance by another german state'. Brunswick was "Freistaat" ('free state'), again not meaning 'an internationally recognised country', but instead meaning 'republic', 'not under the governance of a monarch' - a term currently used by Bavaria, Thuringia and Saxony. "State", you note yourself, has multiple uses, and can mean national or a subdivision, depending on context. --Saalstin (talk) 23:40, 19 April 2009 (UTC)