Wikipedia:Reference desk/Archives/Humanities/2010 January 10

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January 10

Sneaking undesirable items into a proposed bill

Is there a term where a hidden item is sneaked in a proposed bill where it basically is undetectable by the average person if they weren't keenly aware of the bill itself. In other words, the sneaked items are "shanghaied" (commandeered) into the law unbeknownst to the average person that the main law itself applies to. The hidden items are either probably not part of the main law or are a deceptive practice to the main law. Does this practice exist in today's legislature? Is there a "counter-law" that prevents this shady practice? Are there related Wikipedia articles on these items? --Doug Coldwell ^talk 15:58, 10 January 2010 (UTC)

See Rider (legislation). --Tango (talk) 16:39, 10 January 2010 (UTC)

Often these things are known; sometimes they're not caught until later - like the time Senator Patrick Leahy slipped in a rider that would have had Congress declaring Lake Champlain as The Sixth "Great Lake". ←Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots→ 19:00, 10 January 2010 (UTC)

Thanks for fixing the spelling. I had the lake confused with Champlaign, Illinois. :) That kind of rider is relatively harmless, i.e. it wouldn't cost the taxpayers much. Of larger concern are riders that are basically "pork", i.e. that add costs for projects that are of interest to particular legislators and may have little or nothing to do with the main purpose of the bill. That's a constant complaint about legislation, especially elephantine bills like the health care package. ←Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots→ 22:12, 10 January 2010 (UTC)

There's a well known but apocryphal story from Britain about the situation in the 19th century when the only way to get a divorce was through a private Act of Parliament. The Town Clerk of Birmingham was responsible for drafting an extremely long and technical private Bill to permit some works in the city, which wasn't controversial. He was also in an unhappy marriage. His Bill passed through on a formality on what would in the 21st century be described as a 'tl; dr' approach. Only once enacted did people notice that one of the schedules at the very back included a provision declaring 'The Town Clerk's marriage is hereby dissolved'.

This story would be even more amusing if it was true. Sam Blacketer (talk) 23:38, 10 January 2010 (UTC)

This story has always made me wonder what would have happened had the next Town Clerk been married. Would his accession to the post have caused his immediate divorce? W.S. Gilbert would have loved the possibilities. Marnanel (talk) 23:44, 10 January 2010 (UTC) Edit:Aha! Hansard, 20 Feb 1969: "Section 87 of the Liverpool Corporation Act went through the House at a late hour. It said, "The town clerk's marriage is hereby dissolved". Thus, the town clerk got his own private Act of Parliament and I gather that succeeding town clerks of Liverpool took advantage of the provision for some years until the matter was put right in the 1857 Act."[1] (That still doesn't mean it's true, but it means that someone in 1969 thought it would automatically divorce any future Town Clerks.) Marnanel (talk) 23:48, 10 January 2010 (UTC)

Love these stories. Please continue. I'm going along for the ride.--Doug Coldwell ^talk 00:43, 11 January 2010 (UTC)

Sen. Chuck Grassley inserted a clause into a tax bill – not during Senate debate, but in the conference committee between the House and Senate designed to iron out minor differences – that raised taxes on Americans living abroad by about 30%. The constitutionality of doing something like that, particularly when both houses had voted down exactly that provision, is in question.DOR (HK) (talk) 04:22, 11 January 2010 (UTC)

You remind me of the Simpsons episode when Crusty is elected senator, and they sneak in their bill to force planes away from their homes. Such similar shenanigans were shown in Amazing Grace, where they trick MPs in favour of slavery away to the races or something so they can vote it out. Not bad, since the Commons wasn't really democratic nor representative in those days anyway. I do believe all law should be above board, and surely anything snuck in is not voted on, since surely the MPs have to know what they are voting about. The Russian Christopher Lilly 12:55, 11 January 2010 (UTC) —Preceding unsigned comment added by Christopher1968 (talk • contribs)

Productivity of men vs. productivity of women worker

Taking out of the calculation maternity leaves, does anybody have data or know whether the productivity of women worker is equal or different from this of men worker at the very same position, seniority and so on? Especially I'm interested in information on the two sexes productivity rates in productive works. --Gilisa (talk) 16:08, 10 January 2010 (UTC)

Measuring productivity is non-trivial -- particularly if you are talking about a job in which the units of output are not well defined. There are studies that show that there is no statistically significant difference in the average wage rate for males versus females when you control for education, years of experience, likelihood of work absence, etc. The bulk of reported differences in male/female wages are due to behavioral differences. For example, the average woman of age X has less experience than the average man of age X due to child rearing. This difference compounds over time because, the couple (on average) will tend to move to follow the male's career because (on average and due to child rearing) the male's wage is greater. This results in more numerous interruptions in the female's career and, correspondingly, a lower wage. Also, females (at least in the US) are disproportionately represented in college majors that lead to lower paying jobs (e.g., literature versus engineering). Critics rightly raise causality questions here, but if it is true that if one compares females with engineering degrees to males with engineering degrees (instead of females in general to males in general), the wage difference mostly disappears. Wikiant (talk) 16:22, 10 January 2010 (UTC)

Thanks for your answer, however the question remain. I specifically asked an answer that mind all of the factors you mentioned (e.g. controled work hours, seniority and etc)-you picked average wage as an indicator for productivity, and thats just dont answer it. I know that in many occupations it's hard to have good measure for productivity, but nevertheless there are enough work places which do have their own way to measure the productivity of each worker in good approximation (e.g. microsoft, intel). Mostly, these companies set a certain threshold of productivity for each worker in each department or team and who ever cross it may be rewarded in his/her salary-however, only if he/she signficantly crossed the threshold and even then it's mostly not guaranteed. So, overall, even it's probably practicaly impossible to measure productivity rates by sex in the entire market, there are probably studies that can give as a clue. As for the Hi Tec sector, it's mostly occupied by men so women employees in this sector may not be the best example as they are not very representative. On the other hand, the Hi Tec industry is one of the most productive.--Gilisa (talk) 17:43, 10 January 2010 (UTC)

The work places that have their own measures of productivity aren't directly measuring productivity in the sense that economists mean "productivity." What they are measuring may, to varying degrees, be correlated with productivity. For example, one might count "lines of code written per day" as a software engineer's "productivity", but how does one measure the quality of those lines of code? As a rough approximation, one might count instead, "lines of code written per day that end up in the final product". But that also is flawed. It assumes that the project manager (who decides what lines of code appear in the final product) flawlessly chooses which engineer's code ends up in the program. It also assumes that the market research folk flawlessly determine and communicate to the project manager what features the customer wants. Wikiant (talk) 22:24, 10 January 2010 (UTC)

It also assumes that the software engineer isn't padding his line count to increase apparent productivity -- something that's trivially easy for someone with a bit of experience. --Carnildo (talk) 02:41, 12 January 2010 (UTC)

Equal pay for equal work, and no youth rates. Base salary on skill and output, not gender or youth. It is unfortunate that ladies' pay seems generally lower than that of men. I believe only in a fair day's pay for a fair day's work, and bosses would do well to look after their workers, since a happy workforce is a productive one. The Russian Christopher Lilly 12:57, 12 January 2010 (UTC)

sister city of Compton, California and East Los Angeles, California

Does Compton have any sister cities in Georgia, Florida, Arkansas, Texas, Louisiana, Mississippi, Kentucky, Tennesse, Virginia, West Virginia, North CArolina and South Carolina due to its African-American population and crime and does East Los Angeles have any sister cities in other parts of U.S. due to its Hispanic-American population? —Preceding unsigned comment added by 74.14.118.108 (talk) 16:13, 10 January 2010 (UTC)

As both Compton and East Los Angeles are inner suburbs of Los Angeles, they do not have their own sister cities. However, Los Angeles does have sister cities, 25 to be exact, which are as follows: Eilat, Israel; Nagoya, Japan; Salvador, Brazil; Bordeaux, France; Berlin, Germany; Lusaka, Zambia; Mexico City, Mexico; Auckland City, New Zealand; Busan, South Korea; Mumbai, India; Tehran, Iran; Taipei, Taiwan, Republic of China; Guangzhou, People's Republic of China; Athens, Greece; Saint Petersburg, Russia; Vancouver, Canada; Giza, Egypt; Jakarta, Indonesia; Kaunas, Lithuania; Makati, Philippines; Split, Croatia; San Salvador, El Salvador; Beirut, Lebanon; Ischia, Italy; Yerevan, Armenia; and Manchester, United Kingdom. Hope this helps! Laurinavicius (talk) 16:53, 10 January 2010 (UTC)

I observe that the OP is asking about potential sisters in other states of the US, and and also talks about their demographics. I wonder if the OP has a different idea of 'sister cities' in mind from the more formal concept Laurinavicius refers to? --ColinFine (talk) 17:57, 10 January 2010 (UTC)

Inner suburbs in the United States can be, and usually are, independent cities with their own city governments. Compton, California is a city, not a neighborhood of Los Angeles. As far as I know, however, US cities don't have sister cities within the US, but only foreign cities. See http://www.comptonsistercities.org/ for a list of Compton's sister cities. Woogee (talk) 20:22, 10 January 2010 (UTC)

East LA is an unincorporated part of Los Angeles County and therefore would be unlikely to have its own sister cities. But see List of U.S. communities with Hispanic majority populations. Hispanic-majority suburbs elsewhere include Hialeah, Florida, Cicero, Illinois, Union City, New Jersey and South Houston, Texas. -- Mwalcoff (talk) 07:22, 11 January 2010 (UTC)

Systematic relationship between and examples of controversy and issue

From reading the Wiki's definitions and other dictionary's definitions, I have a general sense of the meanings of "controversy" and "issue", but I can't provide any specific examples (other than the kinds of examples like Evolution VS Creationism). I came across one source that gave a more systematic definition: Issue is defined as a set of positions or answers pertaining to a single question; controversy is defined as a set of issues revolving around a related set of questions. But I can't come up with precise examples that match these definitions. Any help would be appreciated. —Preceding unsigned comment added by Ysk1 (talk • contribs) 23:32, 10 January 2010 (UTC)

I'm not sure if the line is always all that rigid, but an "issue" is something like "women's rights" or "drunk driving". It isn't necessarily controversial (who is for drunk driving?). In your case, "Evolution v. Creationism" is the controversy, "science in the classroom" or "religion in schools" is the issue. --Mr.98 (talk) 03:11, 11 January 2010 (UTC)