Wikipedia:Reference desk/Archives/Humanities/2014 December 16

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December 16

website that shows number of votes to gain a seat in parliament close party list

Is there a website that shows the where in Israel if a party can gain a seat in a 3.25% threshold, how many votes do they have to gain a seat? — Preceding unsigned comment added by 70.29.32.248 (talk) 00:30, 16 December 2014 (UTC)

Are you looking for a site that would show how many votes will correspond to the 3.25% threshold in the upcoming 2015 March 17 elections? Contact Basemetal here 00:49, 16 December 2014 (UTC)

If that's the question, note it will depend on the turnout. (If I understand Voter registration#Israel and the outdated [1] correctly, the size of the electorate is probably fixed presuming the date remains the same.) Nil Einne (talk) 12:37, 17 December 2014 (UTC)

Right. I was very curious to hear how the OP imagined such a site would figure out the turnout in advance. If that was indeed the question. If there's a different question in there I'm at a loss what it may be. Contact Basemetal here 16:14, 17 December 2014 (UTC)

Any party crossing the 3.25% threshold is mathematically guaranteed to get some seats (at least 3, and almost certainly at least 4), and any party below the threshold will get no seats, if that's what you're asking. If there was no threshold at all, you'd get a seat with 0.8% of votes or even less. --Roentgenium111 (talk) 10:57, 17 December 2014 (UTC)

Does that mean it's impossible for a party to win a total of 1 or 2 seats? --86.12.139.34 (talk) 11:10, 17 December 2014 (UTC)

Under the current threshold and directly from the elections, it appears so. From reading our articles, I'm not sure of there's anything stopping 2 smaller parties joining together with a unified closed list, but making it clear they will function seperately after the election beyond the difficulties coming to such an agreement and the possible dislike among supporters of such an agreement. (Something similar was attempted by Internet Party and Mana Movement in NZ, although in that case they just agreed to review rather than definitely break apart after the election. It spectacularly failed. Of course, NZ used MMP instead of a purely list based system so there's nothing stopping a party with only 1 or 2 seats by winning electorates.) I do see some discussion of party hopping/switching limitations (edit: I meant outside wikipedia), but couldn't find a clear cut discussion in our articles and it sounds like these things may change a bit in Israel fairly frequently. From the history, I'm not sure if these limitations would definitely prevent such an attempt. At worst, may be they would require the parties to be continue to technically function as one party when it comes to funding, seating arrangements etc (so would require that basic level of cooperation) while still allowing them them to vote on legislation and even confidence and supply measures independently. Edit: Noticed talk of alliances before but somehow missed the section at Elections in Israel which definitely suggests it may be possible. Nil Einne (talk) 12:34, 17 December 2014 (UTC)

Iorwerth ap Owain ap Caradog

Apparently Iorwerth Ap Owain had a connection to the ancient town of Waterford sometime around 1171. Where can I find information on this and a biography history on Iorwerth Ap Owain whom I think is in my family line. Christie the puppy lover (talk) 12:50, 16 December 2014 (UTC)

Iorwerth Drwyndwn is our article. It's all a very long time ago, and it wouldn't be surprising if all that remains is a few names in a genealogy or chronology. Itsmejudith (talk) 17:02, 16 December 2014 (UTC)

No, Iorwerth Drwyndwn is a different character from the Iorwerth ap Owain ap Caradog whose basic details are given in the ancestry.com page the OP linked to. The OP's Iorwerth was a grandson of Caradog ap Gruffydd. His date of birth is unknown, but he first appeared in history in 1136, becoming lord of Caerleon, and dying somewhere between 1175 and 1184. These facts come from the Oxford Dictionary of National Biography's article on him, which lives behind a paywall but which you may be able to access via your library's website, Christie. Neither we nor the Welsh Wikipedia has a page on your Iorwerth ap Owain, but bizarrely German Wikipedia has rather a good one, de:Iorwerth ab Owain, which Google Translate should make fairly comprehensible. Couldn't find anything connecting him with Waterford by the way. --Antiquary (talk) 20:58, 16 December 2014 (UTC)

Now I come to look at the ODNB more closely I see that in 1171 Henry II, on his way to invade Ireland via the port of Waterford, forced Iorwerth out of Caerleon (he regained it two years later). Maybe that's the connection, though an indirect one. --Antiquary (talk) 21:39, 16 December 2014 (UTC)

Thanks gentlemen.Christie the puppy lover (talk) 15:54, 20 December 2014 (UTC)

What do people do if they share the same name with a criminal?

What do people, who have never been convicted of a crime and are looking for a job, do if they share the same name with a criminal? Are they allowed to change names, or would employers be highly suspicious of the candidate if they do so? Would employers do a background check to make sure the person is not related to the criminal by the same name, or would they dismiss by impression of the name? 140.254.136.178 (talk) 16:21, 16 December 2014 (UTC)

They're going to check on a lot more info than just the name. If all they did was to check the name, the countless John Smiths of the world would never find work. ←Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots→ 16:54, 16 December 2014 (UTC)

(As an interesting aside- "John Smith" is actually much less common of a name than we would expect, based on the commonality of "John" and "Smith" independently. It seems that people have been avoiding that name. It was indeed hard to search for refs but I did find this [2] :) SemanticMantis (talk) 17:46, 16 December 2014 (UTC)

I was about to link that same article, but edit-conflicted. I'm surprised we don't have an article on Three word names or something similar. There seems to be long precedence for it. Matt Deres (talk) 17:49, 16 December 2014 (UTC)

I've heard that in Israel the most common surname and the most common masculine given name never go together. —Tamfang (talk) 09:52, 18 December 2014 (UTC)

There have been a couple of cases where a person has shared the same name and date-of-birth as a criminal. They tend to get a letter from the police saying "To Whom It May Concern, the bearer of this document, John A. Smith, born 1st Feb 1970, IS NOT the same as John B. Smith, also born 1st Feb 1970. John A. Smith has no criminal record, unlike John B. Smith". CS Miller (talk) 18:03, 16 December 2014 (UTC)

This also highlights the fact that you'd have to have the same name and at least relatively close DOBs and characteristics to be believably mistaken for the criminal by someone doing a background check. If you were just worried about someone randomly googling, you might just go by a variant of your legal name (e.g., short/long first name, or go by middle name). Finally, where even a surname becomes infamous, people just go and change their names. My grandfather once told me that in the 20s, the Chicago phone book had like a dozen Hitlers. There were none by the time the war got into full swing. —/Mendaliv/^2¢/_Δ's/ 18:21, 16 December 2014 (UTC)

I once came across an old news item from that time, about a man named Hitler who had not changed his name. When asked about it, he said: "It's the other fellow who's causing all the trouble: he should be the one who changes his name!" — Preceding unsigned comment added by 65.94.50.4 (talk) 02:07, 17 December 2014 (UTC)

Rabbi Israel Hitler, for understandable reasons, was keen to change his name.[3] Hack (talk) 06:00, 17 December 2014 (UTC)

Your link from a 1936 newspaper does not say he "was keen" but that he was asked to. Contact Basemetal here 08:30, 17 December 2014 (UTC)

Background checks in the UK are usually done with name, date of birth, address, and unique National Insurance Number. It is impossible that two John Smiths (or even two Bartholemew Williebottoms) would share the same National Insurance Number, whether they live at the same address and have the same date of birth or not. I expect in the US they would use your Social Security Number. If your potential employer requires a check on your background, they will not just rely on a simple Google search. They will go to the Police for it (either paying for it themselves, or asking you to pay for it). This way it is done properly and thoroughly, in order to avoid misunderstandings of identity. KägeTorä - (^影_虎) (Chin Wag) 18:52, 16 December 2014 (UTC)

That all sounds like it makes sense, but see No fly list. I don't see any obvious reason why they don't use court orders and due process in reference to identified individuals, except that the officials need to afflict the innocent to prove that they alone are the new constitution and terrorism is the new democracy. Wnt (talk) 21:34, 16 December 2014 (UTC)

Passports all have a unique number, too. If the airport officials are unable to check those numbers, then they need to be retrained. Bartholemew Williebottoms is unlikely to have the same passport number as me. KägeTorä - (^影_虎) (Chin Wag) 22:46, 16 December 2014 (UTC)

There are a couple tricky bits with the no-fly list:

1) They don't want people on the list to know they are on it, because then they might know they are under investigation and be more careful about their nefarious plans. Unfortunately, this means innocent people don't know they are on the list, either.

2) If a criminal knows they are on it, they are likely to give a false Social Security number, making that not very useful for identifying criminals. (A driver's license is normally all that's used for identification, and that doesn't contain the Social Security number, so they just have to take your word for it on that.)

Personally I think they should use fingerprints. I bet the technology is now ready to compare any fingerprint with all those in the no-fly list database quickly. However, I sure would hope that any enabling legislation would require them to destroy records of every non-matching fingerprint they check against the database, so we don't end up arrested for some crime on the other side of the world where our fingerprints resembled theirs (it's happened before). StuRat (talk) 02:26, 17 December 2014 (UTC)

Some airports have face-recognition technology. Basically, you hand over your passport and boarding card, then look into a camera, which then takes a picture of you, and compares it with pictures of people on the No-Fly List and also with wanted criminals and people who are under investigation (who may not necessarily be on the No-Fly List). This is less invasive and less time-consuming than fingerprinting. KägeTorä - (^影_虎) (Chin Wag) 03:43, 17 December 2014 (UTC)

Is face recognition as accurate a means of identification as fingerprinting ? I'm a bit skeptical, especially if the individual has a full beard. StuRat (talk) 06:48, 17 December 2014 (UTC)

Well, so far, the authorities have managed to identify a number of European ISIS fighters appearing in videos they post on the internet. The authorities don't put the videos on TV or anything, so I can only assume they are using face recognition. It is pretty accurate, but requires that the person in question has at least a passport or other form of photo-ID (we don't need passports to travel within Europe - any photo-ID will do for boarding planes or ships, but if you travel by land, you don't need anything). KägeTorä - (^影_虎) (Chin Wag) 12:02, 17 December 2014 (UTC)

That's quite a different scenario:

A) They no doubt had hundreds of security specialists and banks of computers dedicated to the task of identifying those people in the videos.

B) They also may have had a smaller pool of people to compare with. In the case of the French ISIS member, there were only a few dozen suspects.

So, this method may not work at airports, where the facial comparison would have to be made with millions of faces, in seconds, not hours or days. StuRat (talk) 18:25, 17 December 2014 (UTC)

How is that different from a comparison with millions of fingerprints? Also, fingerprints can change - through injury, or even loss of fingers (which does happen due to industrial accidents, etc. - if your head is cut off, you would hardly be going on holiday, would you?). One woman who used to work at my (now retired) mother's office removed her fingerprints with acid to escape a conviction for stealing from the company. It is very easily done. KägeTorä - (^影_虎) (Chin Wag) 19:55, 18 December 2014 (UTC)

There's plastic surgery to change the face, too, not to mention far easier changes in facial hair or weight. And, if somebody burned off their fingerprints, you can be pretty sure they're up to something nefarious, unlike those who have a nose job. As for comparison, I understand with fingerprints they identify a small set of points on each print, like the center of a whorl, and then look for other prints which match those features at those coords. I suppose things like moles might work for the face, but of course they can be faked, removed, or covered by cosmetics. Also, something like the shape of the nose is not as precisely categorized. You can give approximate dimensions for it, but it might tend to vary with weight, water retention, and age (not to mention plastic surgery). StuRat (talk) 02:30, 23 December 2014 (UTC)

The singer Yusuf Islam was refused entry to the US in 2004. After some time, he was able to prove that the US authorities mistook him for Youssef Islam who they claimed was a terrorist. --TammyMoet (talk) 08:39, 17 December 2014 (UTC)

He hummed a few bars of Peace Train to prove who he was... --Jayron32 11:26, 17 December 2014 (UTC)

A persuasive theory, except... why was Senator Ted Stevens' wife, Cat(herine) Stevens, hassled under the list? (which is one of the incidents listed in the no fly list article) Wnt (talk) 13:17, 17 December 2014 (UTC)

I intially misread your statement as saying why wasn't she on. Anyway it is a little weird that she matched. On the other hand, it only happened after Yusuf Islam was denied entry. I guess one possibility is that upon denying Yusuf Islam, who may have told them he was formerly known as Cat Stevens, the name Cat Stevens was added as a possible alias without worrying about whether the Yusuf Islam formerly known as Cat Stevens was even intended to be on the list. Nil Einne (talk) 14:30, 17 December 2014 (UTC)

In terms of travel, in the US, people who are repeatedly mistaken for someone else can apply for redress via the Department of Homeland Security which means they will get redress control number (RCN) which after the application is dealt with is supposed to help [4] [5]. Certain people can also get a Known Traveler Number although it's based on the person being special or trusted rather than being misidentified as someone else [6]. Edit: See this is mention in pur No Fly List article, where it's also claimed it doesn't do much. Nil Einne (talk) 13:04, 17 December 2014 (UTC)

As near as I can tell, problems like the one discussed here are the reason media outlets frequently refer to notorious criminals by their first, middle, and last names. John Wayne Gacy, Lee Harvey Oswald, Arthur Gary Bishop, etc. It narrows the pool of people who can reasonably be confused with the person in question (though I imagine there's a John William Gacy somewhere who now goes by Jack or Bill). Evan ^{(talk|contribs)} 18:33, 17 December 2014 (UTC)

Anyone serious will look deeper, or ask you directly, but some people could probably get the wrong impression in some circumstances. Someone once said to someone that in situations like this you should control your own publicity. Set up a website in your name, use social media profiles, make Wikipedia edits and a userpage in your name, etc, in order to feature above, or at least contrasted to, the problem person. You may or may not have to sacrifice some privacy. -- zzuuzz ^(talk) 18:48, 17 December 2014 (UTC)

A recent example was that of Gerry Sandusky, a Baltimore sportscaster, and Jerry Sandusky, convicted of sexual abuse while a football assistant coach at Penn State. Because both were involved with football, their names frequently got crossed. It was sometimes compounded by the fact that both had relatives with similar names who were affiliated with the Cleveland Browns (Gerry's father John and Jerry's son Jon). Gerry Sandusky discussed the situation here.    → Michael J Ⓣ Ⓒ Ⓜ 23:55, 17 December 2014 (UTC)

Rotating ownership as a means of evading the law

I think we have all probably heard of, for instance, night clubs which somehow seem to consistently get shut down time and again and then reopened under new management time and again getting shut down for the same violations. In some cases, reporters find that the multiple rotating owners are in fact often some form of extra-legal partners to the same operation, using the rotating ownership as a way of keeping the place legally open but still, well, violating the same laws.

I hope that makes some bare minimum of sense. I remember having heard in the news, years ago, about a specific instance of this, where the reporter used what seemed to be a bit of a technical term, but I have no idea what the term used was. I know shell company is a bit of a related concept, but it isn't the one I'm thinking of. Any ideas? John Carter (talk) 18:54, 16 December 2014 (UTC)

Might vaguely fall under Collusion - in the common sense, if not the more narrow and strict legal sense. SemanticMantis (talk) 19:09, 16 December 2014 (UTC)

That kind of shell game is more common than you might think. In the early days of cell phones there were many fly-by-night companies that collected subscriptions, went bankrupt, then reopened under a new name and repeated the cycle. And then we have General Motors, which just went bankrupt to avoid paying their debts and screw over their retirees, then reopened under the same name, but as a supposedly different company, with all the assets of the old company, and with government approval no less. StuRat (talk) 02:39, 17 December 2014 (UTC)

Can a cathedral be a grass hut?

I've heard that a cathedral is just the seat of the bishop, and as such, there is no requirement to build a very tall, very fancy, very big structure. Yet, many cathedrals are tall, fancy, and big. Suppose a tiny Catholic population exists in the middle of nowhere, and there are just not enough resources to build a fancy, tall, and big cathedral. Can a cathedral be a grass hut then? 140.254.229.103 (talk) 19:22, 16 December 2014 (UTC)

A cathedral can be made of anything the local parish can achieve/afford. Here is one in Kwa-Zulu, Natal, South Africa. KägeTorä - (^影_虎) (Chin Wag) 19:35, 16 December 2014 (UTC)

A Cathedral is just the home church of a bishop. It doesn't even have to be the largest church in its own city; where I live (Raleigh, North Carolina), the local Catholic cathedral is Sacred Heart Cathedral (Raleigh, North Carolina), which is very small, with seating for only about 350. Meanwhile, St. Raphael's Catholic Church can seat well over 1000. --Jayron32 03:25, 17 December 2014 (UTC)

There is the Cardboard Cathedral in Christchurch although it's only intended to be a cathedral temporarily (may continue as a church afterwards) and it's not exactly small seating 700 people and costs $5 million to build and also uses much more than cardboard (less cardboard than even the designer wanted). Edit: Technically a Pro-cathedral I guess. Nil Einne (talk) 13:54, 17 December 2014 (UTC)

You can see the old cathedral of the tiny Christ Catholic Church (Pruter) denomination here [7] [8]. Basically little more than an ordinary American house and supposedly once recognised as the "World's Smallest Cathedral in the Guinness Book of World Records" (but I can the feeling if anyone did have a grass hut cathedral they may not even know of the Guinness World Records). Nil Einne (talk) 14:07, 17 December 2014 (UTC)

I believe the Anglican cathedral in Yellowknife was for many years a simple two-bedroom house. Of course it would not be a grass hut up there, but as long as it has everything a church needs under ecclesiastical law it can be a cathedral. --NellieBly (talk) 16:26, 17 December 2014 (UTC)

NellieBly, I don't think the cathedral of the Diocese of The Arctic was in Yellowknife although the Synod Office is. The original pro-cathedral was All Saints located in Aklavik. Since 1972 St. Jude's in Iqaluit has been the bishop's seat. See The History of St. Jude's Anglican Cathedral, Iqaluit. The original St. Jude's was destroyed by fire in 2007 and that may have led to the idea that a house was being used as the cathedral. However, I don't think a house would have accommodated everyone. I believe that they used community hall for services but I can't find anything to confirm that. CambridgeBayWeather, Uqaqtuq (talk), Sunasuttuq 21:12, 17 December 2014 (UTC)

I couldn't find a grass hut cathedral, but I did find a wooden shed. The building of Truro Cathedral in Cornwall necessitated the demolition of the existing parish church in 1880. As a temporary measure, a large wooden building holding 500 worshippers, was constructed nearby for the sum of £430.[9] It was the venue for the first Festival of Nine Lessons and Carols on Christmas Eve 1880.[10] The shed served as the cathedral for seven years and was later sold and used as a boot factory. Alansplodge (talk) 16:30, 17 December 2014 (UTC)

How did Anglican cathedrals arrive in China?

Eh? How did they get there? 140.254.229.103 (talk) 19:32, 16 December 2014 (UTC)

Colonisation. KägeTorä - (^影_虎) (Chin Wag) 19:37, 16 December 2014 (UTC)

But China never really was under any European control. No declaration of independence or anything like that. 140.254.229.103 (talk) 20:23, 16 December 2014 (UTC)

Hong Kong and Macau were owned by two European countries. Shanghai had a long history of European contact. There were colonies (British, American, German, French, and even Japanese) in North East China, most notably in the Tianjin and Qingdao areas. KägeTorä - (^影_虎) (Chin Wag) 20:39, 16 December 2014 (UTC)

Those are port cities. I can see why port cities would be desirable to foreign powers. As people move farther inland, it may be harder and harder to navigate, let alone control these territories. In the American Revolutionary War, one advantage that Americans had was that they were fighting on home ground, which might help with navigation. 140.254.229.103 (talk) 21:11, 16 December 2014 (UTC)

Converting locals helps you to navigate inland and convert more locals, ad infinitum. How do you think Christianity arrived in Europe from Palestine? KägeTorä - (^影_虎) (Chin Wag) 22:39, 16 December 2014 (UTC)

Missionary work. We Christians love our missionary work, a little too much actually. When Christians go into any country, they bring their clergy with them. When the clergy arrive, they see a wonderful place to win new converts and request that missionaries to convert the locals be sent in, and some people convert. The only places I know of that haven't experienced any significant missionary activity by some Christians are parts of the Muslim world, specifically in areas where any religion other than Islam is illegal and potentially basis for imprisonment or worse. And, of course, a lot of the businesses and other immigrants love being able to bring the heathen locals in line, or as they would say up to, their nominally "Christian" cultural standards. It was stupid, arrogant, condescending, and in the eyes of many people, including several Christians, inexcusable according to the standards of society today, but things were different then. John Carter (talk) 20:31, 16 December 2014 (UTC)

I think Christians call everything evangelism. They send missionaries out to foreign countries. They send missionaries across their native country. I've read about American missionaries who just evangelize in the United States in the 19th century. I think the secular form of missionary work would be something like the Peace Corps. The United States sends out human aides and provides medical and educational assistance. But instead of converting people to Christianity, they're more focused on gaining better understandings of American culture. 140.254.229.103 (talk) 21:23, 16 December 2014 (UTC)

No. Not every Christian is American (in fact, most of them aren't, and certainly weren't during the colonial era). Also, 'evangelical' or 'evangelism' in modern-day parlance refers to mainly American so-called 'Anglican' doctrine (ironically, 'Anglican' means 'Church of England' but American Anglicanism has nothing to do with us). KägeTorä - (^影_虎) (Chin Wag) 03:18, 17 December 2014 (UTC)

Well, not quite "nothing" - both the Church of England and the Episcopal Church (United States) are members of the Anglican Communion and recognise the Archbishop of Canterbury as the "first among equals". Alansplodge (talk) 09:15, 17 December 2014 (UTC)

Cathedrals are basically the seat of a bishop, in this case, an Anglican bishop. Bishoporics or dioceses are created by churches when the population is significant enough, in some way, to merit a separate overseer, or bishop. That bishop in general also has several priests working in some way under him. So, when there got to be enough Anglicans in China to merit a permanent bishop, that was the time the first cathedral was created, and new ones were created for each separate diocese thereafter. Chung Hua Sheng Kung Hui contains some basic information on the history of Anglicanism in China, and there are numerous other sources, including this .pdf book from Yale University, which might provide some more full information. John Carter (talk) 19:44, 16 December 2014 (UTC)

See also the Church Mission Society. Alansplodge (talk) 09:15, 17 December 2014 (UTC)

Do the U.S. and China make efforts to secure Hawaii's affections?

Because it is a densely populated country and a leader in colonizing and farming the ocean, I suspect it is China's "manifest destiny" to be the one to colonize the Pacific. But to stake this claim in a process similar to that used in the Arctic, they would need to control Hawaii. A few years ago there was a comment by a Chinese ambassador that they could make claims on Hawaii. [11] Asians and specifically Chinese are a very large and growing minority in Hawaii, and I've read they don't receive the same "haole" treatment as whites are said to. If one could predict the rate of expansion of the Chinese navy and the rate of decay of the U.S. economy, and the potential for civil conflict in the political system, it would seem possible to guess a date not so far in the future when these factors come together. But that's officially not a topic for the Refdesk, so let's be more practical --- are there any visible signs that China encourages its emigres to settle in Hawaii, or has any operation to do "passportization" of Chinese nationals in Hawaii, or is using trade relationships in a way that will increase its political power? And on the other side, is there any effort by the U.S. government to subsidize migration and tourism between Hawaii and the mainland, to improve intranational trade and give it advantages over trade with China, or generally to bind the islands to itself more tightly? Wnt (talk) 21:48, 16 December 2014 (UTC)

That's quite the conspiracy theory you have there, I however believe the billions of Chinese hackers will one day attack and replace all recorded mention of Hawaii ever being a US state and that it has always been a Chinese province. 76.68.49.155 (talk) 00:48, 17 December 2014 (UTC)

Hawaii is a U.S. state. It is legally as much a part of the United States as New York or California. It enjoys all of the economic advantages of being within the boundaries of the United States. As such there are absolutely no tariffs or barriers of any kind on trade between Hawaii and the mainland, not even customs inspections. So trade between Hawaii and the mainland is inherently easier than that between Hawaii and China. Because Hawaii is a part of the United States, young people there are acculturated to the same patriotic sensibilities (through national holidays, flags, school curricula, and so on) as young people elsewhere in the United States. Beyond this, there is no special effort to subsidize contact between Hawaii and the mainland or to "bind the islands ... more tightly". As for China's policies, there is no evidence of the policies you mention. The only exception is the existence of a Confucius Institute in Hawaii, but several of those also exist in other U.S. states. While there are ethnic Chinese in Hawaii, most of them are descended from immigrants who arrived several generations ago. These people tend to speak only the local variety of English and not any variety of Chinese. As such, most identify more as Hawaiians and Americans than as Chinese. As a side note, the Hawaiian economy, particularly that of its capital and largest city, Honolulu, is somewhat dependent on U.S. military spending because of the presence of several military bases, which are also important employers of Hawaiian civilians. These bases are in Hawaii for strategic reasons, not to win Hawaiian loyalty, but because of their economic impact, they probably also have that effect. Marco polo (talk) 14:59, 17 December 2014 (UTC)

• The U.S. Census Bureau, through their American Community Survey, keeps track of all sorts of data, including that on foreign born people in the U.S. (among hundreds of other characteristics). At American FactFinder (the database utility that parses the HUGE database for you), there's a table there called "Place of Birth by Foreign Born Population in the United States".[12] Comparing Hawaii to other states, the number of people born in China who live in the U.S., as of the 2013 estimates (based on a 5-year sliding average) are 17,378 (excluding Taiwan and Hong Kong, which are counted separately). That's actually much lower than many other states: For comparison, (only because it's the nearby on the table I am looking at), Illinois had 61,167 PRC-born residents. California had 495,064 PRC-born residents, which is almost 1/3rd of the population of the entire state of Hawaii. Also by way of comparison, there were 22,423 people born in Japan living in Hawaii. So, the Chinese-born Hawaiian population is not more than other states, nor are Chinese-born Hawaiians the largest group of East Asians in Hawaii. The premise doesn't hold up to the actual statistics: Not only is there no evidence that China is deliberately trying to infiltrate Hawaii to annex it, the facts don't even show that there's an unusually large number of Chinese nationals in Hawaii compared to other states. --Jayron32 15:27, 17 December 2014 (UTC)

OK, this is a very good point. Though Hawaii has a very large Asian population, the vast majority of these residents are Japanese and Filipino. I hadn't realized so few were from China. Wnt (talk) 19:31, 17 December 2014 (UTC)

Also, you have to consider that Hawaii's large "asian" population (not evident in the above link because it lists only foreign born) is mostly Americans whose ancestors were Asian. It's a sad commentary on our prejudices, but people born in America with Asian ancestors are no less American than those with European ancestors. Not saying you are doing this at all, but it's a common problem in American culture, both historically and today, where only Euro-White Americans are seen as "real" Americans, while everyone else is treated as suspect. See Internment of Japanese Americans. Many of the people who are "Asians" in Hawaii have 2-3 generations before you get back to China or Japan or the Philippines, no more or less than those who trace their ancestry to the UK, France, Germany, or Italy. --Jayron32 21:26, 17 December 2014 (UTC)

I don't think you can limit that to whites, Jayron, since a black person will be assumed to be American, not African or otherwise, unless he speaks with an obvious foreign accent. But I will admit that I was quite surprised some years ago seeing an East-Asian TV anchor who proceeded to speak with a Texas accent. It did not fit with my expectations. μηδείς (talk) 22:31, 17 December 2014 (UTC)

Except that a white American carrying a weapon in public (as part of the open carry movement) is seen as a patriot protecting his right to bear arms, while a black American doing same is a threat which must be neutralized. So, no, African-Americans are not seen as fully American by the fact that American society as a whole reacts to the two differently in the same situation. --Jayron32 18:11, 18 December 2014 (UTC)

I think you've proven Wnt's wider point. Clearly the Chinese government were smarter than under Wnt's naïve scenario. Rather than sending all their people to Hawaiʻi , where people might start to be concerned if over the past few decades the PRC born population grew to become a majority of Hawaiians, they sent their people all over the US. Yet as Marco polo sort of hinted at, as Hawaiʻi is a state of the US there are few restrictions on travel from the mainland. So you send people to other states as well, nearly 500k in a big state like California are less likely to draw attention. Actually per your source there is already 2.2 million although I think this includes many who aren't US citizens. Still China only has to get about 1/2 or something of the over 18s to be US citizens then they can activate their mind control devices and send them to Hawaiʻi. To avoid suspicion, they'll call it the Free State Project 2 and hope no one notices they all happen to have come from the PRC or a frankly much more unanimous than the previous attempt. Once they've established legal residency [13] they'll be in the majority and can then get a constitutional amendment passed to secede from the US. Further, even if the existing population of Hawaiʻi's aren't happy about it, I imagine of the Chinese are fast enough there won't be much they can do before the Chinese can vote down any attempt to stop them. The US might object, so China can invade (presuming they've gotten their aircraft carriers and other stuff ready by then). After some fighting, one side may give up and start launching nukes. The other side will retaliate, the US and perhaps China will be well capable of destroying the world with their nukes and why not? Everyone is happy, well except for 99.99% of the population in the world (including China and the US). Nil Einne (talk) 16:16, 17 December 2014 (UTC)

China's economy is pretty dependent on the US's, we're their largest export partner (if you don't count Hong Kong... Which is part of China, so why would you?), and fourth largest import partner. They're where they are because we buy their stuff (even when they overtake the US's economy, if they haven't technically done so already). China-US relationships are probably only going to improve over time, eventually going back to their historical (mostly) friendly relations, and the Cold War mistrust is going to be seen as an anomaly instead of the norm. Except for the US limiting the immigration of Chinese workers and making the Chinese government pay for the Boxer rebellion (though it was more than the US that did that, and the US used their money to build schools in China), China–United States relations were historically good up until WW2. Ian.thomson (talk) 16:00, 17 December 2014 (UTC)