text:
Prefrontal cortex

In mammalian brain anatomy, the prefrontal cortex (PFC) covers the front part of the frontal lobe of the cerebral cortex. It is the association cortex in the frontal lobe. The PFC contains the Brodmann areas BA8, BA9, BA10, BA11, BA12, BA13, BA14, BA24, BA25, BA32, BA44, BA45, BA46, and BA47.

This brain region is involved in a wide range of higher-order cognitive functions, including speech formation (Broca's area), gaze (frontal eye fields), working memory (dorsolateral prefrontal cortex), and risk processing (e.g. ventromedial prefrontal cortex). The basic activity of this brain region is considered to be orchestration of thoughts and actions in accordance with internal goals. Many authors have indicated an integral link between a person's will to live, personality, and the functions of the prefrontal cortex.

This brain region has been implicated in executive functions, such as planning, decision making, working memory, personality expression, moderating social behavior and controlling certain aspects of speech and language. Executive function relates to abilities to differentiate among conflicting thoughts, determine good and bad, better and best, same and different, future consequences of current activities, working toward a defined goal, prediction of outcomes, expectation based on actions, and social "control" (the ability to suppress urges that, if not suppressed, could lead to socially unacceptable outcomes).

The frontal cortex supports concrete rule learning, with more anterior regions supporting rule learning at higher levels of abstraction.

Definition
There are three possible ways to define the prefrontal cortex:
 * as the granular frontal cortex
 * as the projection zone of the medial dorsal nucleus of the thalamus
 * as that part of the frontal cortex whose electrical stimulation does not evoke movements

Granular frontal cortex
The prefrontal cortex has been defined based on cytoarchitectonics by the presence of a cortical granular layer IV. It is not entirely clear who first used this criterion. Many of the early cytoarchitectonic researchers restricted the use of the term prefrontal to a much smaller region of cortex including the gyrus rectus and the gyrus rostralis (Campbell, 1905; G. E. Smith, 1907; Brodmann, 1909; von Economo and Koskinas, 1925). In 1935, however, Jacobsen used the term prefrontal to distinguish granular prefrontal areas from agranular motor and premotor areas. In terms of Brodmann areas, the prefrontal cortex traditionally includes areas 8, 9, 10, 11, 12, 13, 14, 24, 25, 32, 44, 45, 46, and 47, however, not all of these areas are strictly granular – 44 is dysgranular, caudal 11 and orbital 47 are agranular. The main problem with this definition is that it works well only in primates but not in nonprimates, as the latter lack a granular layer IV.

Projection zone
To define the prefrontal cortex as the projection zone of the mediodorsal nucleus of the thalamus builds on the work of Rose and Woolsey, who showed that this nucleus projects to anterior and ventral parts of the brain in nonprimates, however, Rose and Woolsey termed this projection zone "orbitofrontal." It seems to have been Akert, who, for the first time in 1964, explicitly suggested that this criterion could be used to define homologues of the prefrontal cortex in primates and nonprimates. This allowed the establishment of homologies despite the lack of a granular frontal cortex in nonprimates.

The projection zone definition is still widely accepted today (e.g. Fuster ), although its usefulness has been questioned. Modern tract tracing studies have shown that projections of the mediodorsal nucleus of the thalamus are not restricted to the granular frontal cortex in primates. As a result, it was suggested to define the prefrontal cortex as the region of cortex that has stronger reciprocal connections with the mediodorsal nucleus than with any other thalamic nucleus. Uylings et al. acknowledge, however, that even with the application of this criterion, it might be rather difficult to define the prefrontal cortex unequivocally.

Electrically silent area of frontal cortex
A third definition of the prefrontal cortex is the area of frontal cortex whose electrical stimulation does not lead to observable movements. For example, in 1890 David Ferrier used the term in this sense. One complication with this definition is that the electrically "silent" frontal cortex includes both granular and non-granular areas.

Subdivisions

According to Striedter, the PFC of humans can be delineated into two functionally, morphologically, and evolutionarily different regions: the ventromedial PFC (vmPFC) consisting of: and the lateral prefrontal cortex (LPFC), consisting of:
 * 1) the ventral prefrontal cortex (VPFC)
 * 2) the medial prefrontal cortex present in all mammals (MPFC)
 * 1) the dorsolateral prefrontal cortex (DLPFC)
 * 2) the ventrolateral prefrontal cortex (VLPFC) present only in primates.

The LPFC contains the Brodmann areas BA8, BA9, BA10, BA45, BA46, and BA47. Some researchers also include BA44. The vmPFC contains the Brodmann areas BA12, BA25, BA32, BA33, BA24, BA11, BA13, and BA14.

The table below shows different ways to subdivide parts of the human prefrontal cortex based upon Brodmann areas.

 * The dorsolateral prefrontal cortex is composed of the BA8, BA9, BA10, and BA46.
 * The ventrolateral prefrontal cortex is composed of areas BA45, BA47, and BA44.
 * The medial prefrontal cortex (mPFC) is composed of BA12, BA25, and anterior cingulate cortex: BA32, BA33, BA24. Within that area is the dorsal nexus, which interconnects many parts of the brain.
 * The ventral prefrontal cortex is composed of areas BA11, BA13, and BA14. (Also see the definition of the orbitofrontal cortex.)
 * The dorsolateral prefrontal cortex contains BA8, including the frontal eye fields.
 * The ventrolateral prefrontal cortex contains BA45 which is part of Broca's area. Some researchers also include BA44 the other part of Broca's area.

Interconnections
The prefrontal cortex is highly interconnected with much of the brain, including extensive connections with other cortical, subcortical and brain stem sites. The dorsal prefrontal cortex is especially interconnected with brain regions involved with attention, cognition and action, while the ventral prefrontal cortex interconnects with brain regions involved with emotion. The prefrontal cortex also receives inputs from the brainstem arousal systems, and its function is particularly dependent on its neurochemical environment. Thus, there is coordination between one's state of arousal and mental state. The interplay between the prefrontal cortex and socioemotional system of the brain is relevant for adolescent development, as proposed by the Dual Systems Model.

The medial prefrontal cortex has been implicated in the generation of slow-wave sleep (SWS), and prefrontal atrophy has been linked to decreases in SWS. Prefrontal atrophy occurs naturally as individuals age, and it has been demonstrated that older adults experience impairments in memory consolidation as their medial prefrontal cortices degrade. In older adults, instead of being transferred and stored in the neocortex during SWS, memories start to remain in the hippocampus where they were encoded, as evidenced by increased hippocampal activation compared to younger adults during recall tasks, when subjects learned word associations, slept, and then were asked to recall the learned words.

The ventrolateral prefrontal cortex (VLPFC) has been implicated in various aspects of speech production and language comprehension. The VLPFC is richly connected to various regions of the brain including the lateral and medial temporal lobe, the superior temporal cortex, the infertemporal cortex, the perirhinal cortex, and the parahippoccampal cortex. These brain areas are implicated in memory retrieval and consolidation, language processing, and association of emotions. These connections allow the VLPFC to mediate explicit and implicit memory retrieval and integrate it with language stimulus to help plan coherent speech. In other words, choosing the correct words and staying "on topic" during conversation come from the VLPFC.

Executive function
The original studies of Fuster and of Goldman-Rakic emphasized the fundamental ability of the prefrontal cortex to represent information not currently in the environment, and the central role of this function in creating the "mental sketch pad". Goldman-Rakic spoke of how this representational knowledge was used to intelligently guide thought, action, and emotion, including the inhibition of inappropriate thoughts, distractions, actions, and feelings. In this way, working memory can be seen as fundamental to attention and behavioral inhibition. Fuster speaks of how this prefrontal ability allows the wedding of past to future, allowing both cross-temporal and cross-modal associations in the creation of goal-directed, perception-action cycles. This ability to represent underlies all other higher executive functions.

Shimamura proposed Dynamic Filtering Theory to describe the role of the prefrontal cortex in executive functions. The prefrontal cortex is presumed to act as a high-level gating or filtering mechanism that enhances goal-directed activations and inhibits irrelevant activations. This filtering mechanism enables executive control at various levels of processing, including selecting, maintaining, updating, and rerouting activations. It has also been used to explain emotional regulation.

Miller and Cohen proposed an Integrative Theory of Prefrontal Cortex Function, that arises from the original work of Goldman-Rakic and Fuster. The two theorize that "cognitive control stems from the active maintenance of patterns of activity in the prefrontal cortex that represents goals and means to achieve them. They provide bias signals to other brain structures whose net effect is to guide the flow of activity along neural pathways that establish the proper mappings between inputs, internal states, and outputs needed to perform a given task". In essence, the two theorize that the prefrontal cortex guides the inputs and connections, which allows for cognitive control of our actions.

The prefrontal cortex is of significant importance when top-down processing is needed. Top-down processing by definition is when behavior is guided by internal states or intentions. According to the two, "The PFC is critical in situations when the mappings between sensory inputs, thoughts, and actions either are weakly established relative to other existing ones or are rapidly changing". An example of this can be portrayed in the Wisconsin Card Sorting Test (WCST). Subjects engaging in this task are instructed to sort cards according to the shape, color, or number of symbols appearing on them. The thought is that any given card can be associated with a number of actions and no single stimulus-response mapping will work. Human subjects with PFC damage are able to sort the card in the initial simple tasks, but unable to do so as the rules of classification change. Miller and Cohen conclude that the implications of their theory can explain how much of a role the PFC has in guiding control of cognitive actions. In the researchers' own words, they claim that, "depending on their target of influence, representations in the PFC can function variously as attentional templates, rules, or goals by providing top-down bias signals to other parts of the brain that guide the flow of activity along the pathways needed to perform a task".

Experimental data indicate a role for the prefrontal cortex in mediating normal sleep physiology, dreaming and sleep-deprivation phenomena.

When analyzing and thinking about attributes of other individuals, the medial prefrontal cortex is activated, however, it is not activated when contemplating the characteristics of inanimate objects.

Studies using fMRI have shown that the medial prefrontal cortex (mPFC), specifically the anterior medial prefrontal cortex (amPFC), may modulate mimicry behavior. Neuroscientists are suggesting that social priming influences activity and processing in the amPFC, and that this area of the prefrontal cortex modulates mimicry responses and behavior.

As of recent, researchers have used neuroimaging techniques to find that along with the basal ganglia, the prefrontal cortex is involved with learning exemplars, which is part of the exemplar theory, one of the three main ways our mind categorizes things. The exemplar theory states that we categorize judgements by comparing it to a similar past experience within our stored memories.

A 2014 meta-analysis by Professor Nicole P.Yuan from the University of Arizona found that larger prefrontal cortex volume and greater PFC cortical thickness were associated with better executive performance.

Attention and memory
A widely accepted theory regarding the function of the brain's prefrontal cortex is that it serves as a store of short-term memory. This idea was first formulated by Jacobsen, who reported in 1936 that damage to the primate prefrontal cortex caused short-term memory deficits. Karl Pribram and colleagues (1952) identified the part of the prefrontal cortex responsible for this deficit as area 46, also known as the dorsolateral prefrontal cortex (dlPFC). More recently, Goldman-Rakic and colleagues (1993) evoked short-term memory loss in localized regions of space by temporary inactivation of portions of the dlPFC. Once the concept of working memory (see also Baddeley's model of working memory) was established in contemporary neuroscience by Alan Baddeley (1986), these neuropsychological findings contributed to the theory that the prefrontal cortex implements working memory and, in some extreme formulations, only working memory. In the 1990s this theory developed a wide following, and it became the predominant theory of PF function, especially for nonhuman primates. The concept of working memory used by proponents of this theory focused mostly on the short-term maintenance of information, and rather less on the manipulation or monitoring of such information or on the use of that information for decisions. Consistent with the idea that the prefrontal cortex functions predominantly in maintenance memory, delay-period activity in the PF has often been interpreted as a memory trace. (The phrase "delay-period activity" applies to neuronal activity that follows the transient presentation of an instruction cue and persists until a subsequent "go" or "trigger" signal.)

To explore alternative interpretations of delay-period activity in the prefrontal cortex, Lebedev et al. (2004) investigated the discharge rates of single prefrontal neurons as monkeys attended to a stimulus marking one location while remembering a different, unmarked location. Both locations served as potential targets of a saccadic eye movement. Although the task made intensive demands on short-term memory, the largest proportion of prefrontal neurons represented attended locations, not remembered ones. These findings showed that short-term memory functions cannot account for all, or even most, delay-period activity in the part of the prefrontal cortex explored. The authors suggested that prefrontal activity during the delay-period contributes more to the process of attentional selection (and selective attention) than to memory storage.

Speech production and language
Various areas of the prefrontal cortex have been implicated in a multitude of critical functions regarding speech production, language comprehension, and response planning before speaking. Cognitive neuroscience has shown that the left ventrolateral prefrontal cortex is vital in the processing of words and sentences.

The right prefrontal cortex has been found to be responsible for coordinating the retrieval of explicit memory for use in speech, whereas the deactivation of the left is responsible for mediating implicit memory retrieval to be used in verb generation. Recollection of nouns (explicit memory) is impaired in some amnesic patients with damaged right prefrontal cortices, but verb generation remains intact because of its reliance on left prefrontal deactivation.

Many researchers now include BA45 in the prefrontal cortex because together with BA44 it makes up an area of the frontal lobe called Broca's area. Broca's Area is widely considered the output area of the language production pathway in the brain (as opposed to Wernicke's area in the medial temporal lobe, which is seen as the language input area). BA45 has been shown to be implicated for the retrieval of relevant semantic knowledge to be used in conversation/speech. The right lateral prefrontal cortex (RLPFC) is implicated in the planning of complex behavior, and together with bilateral BA45, they act to maintain focus and coherence during speech production. However, left BA45 has been shown to be activated significantly while maintaining speech coherence in young people. Older people have been shown to recruit the right BA45 more so than their younger counterparts. This aligns with the evidence of decreased lateralization in other brain systems during aging.

In addition, this increase in BA45 and RLPFC activity in combination of BA47 in older patients has been shown to contribute to "off-topic utterances." The BA47 area in the prefrontal cortex is implicated in "stimulus-driven" retrieval of less-salient knowledge than is required to contribute to a conversation. In other words, elevated activation of the BA47 together with altered activity in BA45 and the broader RLPFC has been shown to contribute to the inclusion of less relevant information and irrelevant tangential conversational speech patterns in older subjects.

Clinical significance
In the last few decades, brain imaging systems have been used to determine brain region volumes and nerve linkages. Several studies have indicated that reduced volume and interconnections of the frontal lobes with other brain regions is observed in patients diagnosed with mental disorders; those subjected to repeated stressors; those who excessively consume sexually explicit materials; suicides; criminals; sociopaths; those affected by lead poisoning; It is believed that at least some of the human abilities to feel guilt or remorse, and to interpret reality, are dependent on a well-functioning prefrontal cortex. The advanced neurocircuitry and self-regulatory function of the human prefrontal cortex is also associated with the higher sentience in humans, as the prefrontal cortex in humans occupies a far larger percentage of the brain than in any other animal. It is theorized that, as the brain has tripled in size over five million years of human evolution, the prefrontal cortex has increased in size sixfold.

A review on executive functions in healthy exercising individuals noted that the left and right halves of the prefrontal cortex, which is divided by the medial longitudinal fissure, appears to become more interconnected in response to consistent aerobic exercise. Two reviews of structural neuroimaging research indicate that marked improvements in prefrontal and hippocampal gray matter volume occur in healthy adults that engage in medium intensity exercise for several months.

Chronic intake of alcohol leads to persistent alterations in brain function including altered decision-making ability. The prefrontal cortex of chronic alcoholics has been shown to be vulnerable to oxidative DNA damage and neuronal cell death.

History
Perhaps the seminal case in prefrontal cortex function is that of Phineas Gage, whose left frontal lobe was destroyed when a large iron rod was driven through his head in an 1848 accident. The standard presentation is that, although Gage retained normal memory, speech and motor skills, his personality changed radically: He became irritable, quick-tempered, and impatient—characteristics he did not previously display — so that friends described him as "no longer Gage"; and, whereas he had previously been a capable and efficient worker, afterward he was unable to complete. However, careful analysis of primary evidence shows that descriptions of Gage's psychological changes are usually exaggerated when held against the description given by Gage's doctor, the most striking feature being that changes described years after Gage's death are far more dramatic than anything reported while he was alive.

Subsequent studies on patients with prefrontal injuries have shown that the patients verbalized what the most appropriate social responses would be under certain circumstances. Yet, when actually performing, they instead pursued behavior aimed at immediate gratification, despite knowing the longer-term results would be self-defeating.

The interpretation of this data indicates that not only are skills of comparison and understanding of eventual outcomes harbored in the prefrontal cortex but the prefrontal cortex (when functioning correctly) controls the mental option to delay immediate gratification for a better or more rewarding longer-term gratification result. This ability to wait for a reward is one of the key pieces that define optimal executive function of the human brain.

There is much current research devoted to understanding the role of the prefrontal cortex in neurological disorders. Clinical trials have begun on certain drugs that have been shown to improve prefrontal cortex function, including guanfacine, which acts through the alpha-2A adrenergic receptor. A downstream target of this drug, the HCN channel, is one of the most recent areas of exploration in prefrontal cortex pharmacology.

Etymology
The term "prefrontal" as describing a part of the brain appears to have been introduced by Richard Owen in 1868. For him, the prefrontal area was restricted to the anterior-most part of the frontal lobe (approximately corresponding to the frontal pole). It has been hypothesized that his choice of the term was based on the prefrontal bone present in most amphibians and reptiles.

title: Prefrontal cortex


text:
Talk:People Like Us (musician)

Untitled
Article has been kept following this VfD debate. Incidentally, I dont know if we really need to have that cleanup-tag. I've seen a lot of messier articles without it. Sjakkalle 13:21, 31 May 2005 (UTC)

"has just finished". Eh, when's "just"? 81.236.185.9 23:29, 31 July 2006 (UTC)

People Like Us (album)
Where is the download? I seem to remember it was on archive.org, but the interface there is so lame!

Cheers, --Dan Bolser (talk) 12:34, 3 November 2011 (UTC)

Self published
All the sources on this BLP article are self-published. Rogermx (talk) 19:43, 6 March 2017 (UTC)

license: Creative Commons - Attribution Share-Alike - https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/

title: Talk:People Like Us (musician)


text:
Talk:European Constitution/Archived talk

Talk from Treaty establishing a Constitution for Europe talk page from November 2004 to May 2005.

Please review quotes in Reaction section
I've put some quotes in the 'Reaction' section — could people review them and improve the balance a little by finding some quotes from important figures who hold the view that the constitution is an important step towards a superstate (or otherwise object to it). The majority of the quotes take the view that the proposed consitution is a victory for intergovernmentalism over supranationalism, obviously that's contentious so please supplement the quotes to restore balance. I have introduced some quotes from opposing parties (UK Conservative party and UKIP). Reaction from Roman Cathlolic Church, Eastern European nationalists, etc. would be good.

Nick Fraser 15:44, 12 Nov 2004 (UTC)
 * This is great stuff, but shouldn't at least part of it go in wikiquote with a link? It's not too out of control yet, but it could get that way. How many quotes do you think we should have in the article? My first thought is "one per viewpoint" but that's a gross oversimplification.

Yes I don't want to extend the number of quotes, even reduce by one or two. I'll see about doing the wikiquote thing you suggest. I've never used wikiquote but will check it out. Nick Fraser 09:37, 19 Nov 2004 (UTC)

 * Are you implying that the RCC is opposed to the EU as an entity? I don't think it is per se, though I daresay many of the right-wingers who JP-II filled many of its senior positions with are sympathetic to that view.  Some fundamentalist and right-wing christians believe that it's a part of a satanic conspiracy to create a world government (though curiously they don't seem to see the US that way).

No not implying that RCC is opposed to EU - though they did react to failure to get references to a common Christian heritage in the constitution, thought that was an interesting non-political viewpoint. Nick Fraser 09:37, 19 Nov 2004 (UTC)

 * One other thought: these views are a bit fringe; the loony right, if you will. Aren't there more moderate right-wing anti-EU groups out there? Aren't there anti-constitution pro-EU groups? The British Conservative Party is one such group (I think), though one can never be sure what their policies are nowadays  (this didn't tell me much, except that they oppose the constitution and are worried about vitamin pills being regulated).   Mr. Jones 21:30, 14 Nov 2004 (UTC)

Yes you're right UKIP and to some extent the Conservative Party hold 'extreme' views with regard to the EU in the context of European party politics as a whole (the centre of which is closer to the federalist position than UK media generally reports). I did edit down from a much longer list of reaction, there were some quotes pro-EU right-wingers such as German Christian Democrats (CDU) and the like - I removed these as to be honest they were rather bland statements of support and very similar to many others. To a UK reader the body of quotes I could have included would have seemed distinctly POV, however reading around the literature I've come to the unsurprising conclusion that there is a general consensus amongst European politicians on the merits and need for the Constitution and that there are only a relatively small number of countries (but influential ones such as UK, France, and Poland) in which it is significantly more contentious. Moderate right-wingers and left-wingers on the European stage seem to be generally supportive of the Constitution with the dissenting voices mainly coming from further right (Conservative party, UKIP, Front National/other nationalists) or far left parties. There of course, is the criticism from other groups that the constitution is not ambitious enough (but I think the quotes from the Italian and German federalists covers this just about adequately). Nick Fraser 09:37, 19 Nov 2004 (UTC)

 * I found this after looking more carefully, but there were no references to "Nice" or "Rome", and two to "treaty", neither of which stated Conservative policy. I'll have to read the thing in full. The bits I scanned through looked like rhetoric to me, but there may be some actual policy assertions burried in there somewhere. Mr. Jones 21:40, 14 Nov 2004 (UTC)
 * (Also, their "ten word" policy summary is so powerful it goes up to eleven. ;-) )

New site on EU Constitution
Hi, I would like to reference this site on the page: http://www.eugreens.net/ But since it is linked to the Green party, I am not sure it corresponds to your neutrality policies... Do as you think best, anyway.

 * Are there pages of it which are directly relevant to the constitution? If so, it's probably worth adding in the external links section - perhaps we could add similar links to the other main parties' positions on the constitution. If it's not directly relevant to the constitution, try over at the relevant Green Party or Green group pages. Toby W 21:56, 10 Nov 2004 (UTC)

Of course it is relevant to the constitution: it is a wiki about the constitution. Try "TCE Encyclopedia" on the left menu, the full text is already there, and now we will begin adding comments.[mailto:arnaudherve@mac.com my mail]

So? No listing of eugreens.net? Still, the EU constitution is a political subject, hence referring to parties websites should be ok. Referring this site doesn't mean a monopoly of external links to the Greens. To be precise this one is not even a party website: it's a grassroots initiative. But it's one of the few sites where the text is online.

 * Add it! Toby W 08:53, 13 Nov 2004 (UTC)

Just a sec, what's the copyright policy? (would look, but I'm going to bed). Mr. Jones 21:52, 14 Nov 2004 (UTC)

Please sign your posts
Please sign your comments and posts (with ~ ). It makes it a lot easier to edit discussions afterwards and to see who said what :-) Mr. Jones 14:18, 2 Nov 2004 (UTC)

Structure of the proposed EU Constitution
I've linked to the above article. Has the structure changed in the version recently signed? Mr. Jones 13:42, 2 Nov 2004 (UTC)

Controversy and reverted changes
kilobug> Sorry to put this on top of the discussion, but I fear it'll not be read else, and it should be only temporary. Can I know why my changes were reverted ? Why should only the arguments of the ones opposing the idea of an European Constitution be in the "controversy" section, and not the arguments of the ones wanting an European Constitution, but totally disagreeing on the content of the text ? None of what I wrote is false, it's all clearly written in the text, and it is an important part of the "controversy".

 * I know how it feels to have your edits reverted arbitrarily, but I think I can see why it happened this time. I wasn't the one who reverted your changes, but to my eye, the content and tone of your additions were a long way from what's needed for an NPOV encyclopedia. I suspect that somebody saw your changes, recognised them as unacceptable, but was in no position to do a detailed clean-up and instead simply reverted the changes.

 * Now it may well be that the points you made are well worth making, in which case please do think about re-editing the article. But, when you do, please avoid phrases like "the constitution forces upon member states", "mess with the economy", "force them to perpetually run towards greater military", "lack of democracy", "neo-liberal policies", "mandatory policies forced upon all countries", and so on. Many pro-constitution campaigners would hotly dispute these claims. Now, whether you think the claims are true or false, the fact is that they are disputed, and so Wikipedians need to tread carefully in analysing them. Toby W 11:54, 2 Nov 2004 (UTC)

kilobug> Why did you reverse my change on the "popular mandate" section ? The section, as written now, is just false. Read the actual text of the Constitution, article I-46-4, Not less than one million citizens coming from a significant number of Member States may take the initiative of inviting the Commission.... The Commission being ivinted is not the Commission being forced as written in the current article. In the same way, it's not any constitutional proposal which means anything compatible with the Constitution, but on matters where citizens consider that a legal act of the Union is required for the purpose of implementing the Constitution. (still article I-46-4). Being required for the purpose of implementing the Constitution is far more restrictive than merly being compatible with the Constitution.

 * I don't know why that change was reverted. I agree that your point is accurate, but I see that you also added some political comment instead of simply changing the word 'obliged' to 'invited'. In my opinion, that political comment belonged in the 'controversy' section, not in a section which should simply describe the content of the constitution.

 * Incidentally, though, the edit you made was inaccurate in another respect. The European Parliament has the power to oblige (not just invite) the Commission to bring forward a proposal. And it then has the power to rewrite that proposal as it sees fit, without the Commission having any subsequent say.

 * I hope that makes sense and explains why I've removed the NPOV tag from the top of the page. And I'd strongly encourage you to have another go at editing the article. Cheers! Toby W 11:54, 2 Nov 2004 (UTC)

 * Kilobug, thanks for your edits today. I've made a few minor changes mostly of style. I've also added some brief balancing remarks without affecting the content of your edits. I hope that's OK, but as ever, feel free to edit as you see fit! Toby W 09:59, 3 Nov 2004 (UTC)

Link to external POV article replacing article text
''Contrary to popular belief, the Nice weightings do not give Spain and Poland an influence disproportiane to their populations. The Nice weighting give each country 27 votes out of a total of 320 (8.44%). If we take EU-25 population at 450.7 million, Spain's at 39.4 million and Poland's at 38.6 million, then they have 8.74% and 8.56% of EU population respectively (I've seen different figures for population; but these are approximately correct). Therefore the Nice weightings give Spain and Poland less than if the weightings were proportional to population. '' (continued at Discussion of Nice weightings and EU Constitution) -- Cabalamat 16:55, 1 Jan 2004 (UTC) Amended by Mr. Jones 12:42, 20 Apr 2004 (UTC)

I've put a link to the above-linked article (i.e.Discussion of Nice weightings and EU Constitution) in the main page. Since it's an external link to something I myself have written, I'm not saure about the propriety of doing so. Is it OK? please let me know (on my talk page) -- Cabalamat 17:29, 1 Jan 2004 (UTC)

Is discussion of this topic is too biased in this article?
"Contrary to common belief, the Nice weightings do not give Spain and Poland an influence disproportiane to their populations..."

"Spain's and Poland's dislike of the draft constitution weightings cannot be because they'd get..."

While I applaud the effort to create an entry for the very important European Constition, I thoroughly dislike the above sections and surrounding paragraphs. This is an opinionated analysis presented as fact and in my mind at least, it very clearly violates the NPOV (neutral point-of-view) principles that are the basis for Wikipedia -- regardless of one's opinion on the actual matter. These paragraphs should be in a debate forum, not in a neutral encylopedia. Does anyone else agree with me? If these paragraphs must be there, they should be presented in an entirely different tone, and citing the opinons of other people (with examples where possible) rather than profess to claim the truth.

By the way, I wouldn't have a problem if these paragraphs were contained in some link (we can and should expect links to possibly be biased) but it looks like they are actually part of the main page.

Contentiousness is not bias

 * I don't agree, Anonymous. I know the issue of voting rights is a contentious one, but 'contentious' doesn't translate as 'biased'. The paragraph quoted above is entirely factual - all it does is quote figures. There is no indication of a particular viewpoint except in the link, which is entitled to be non-NPOV because it's not part of Wikipedia. If Cabalamat had written "Therefore Spain and Poland should stop whinging and put up with it", this would be out of order, but he hasn't.

Spain and Polands' views on their voting weights need to be represented

 * What we perhaps need in order to satisfy everyone is a modification to explain the rationale (purely factual, again, of course) behind Spain & Poland's side of the argument. Something like "Spain and Poland dispute their revised proposed voting weights because…" and then giving their reasons, perhaps with an external link to the other side of the argument to balance it.

Later:

I googled the issue to find out what was the row about, and found this: IGC (the convention)' did not specified in the draft what the voting rights are.' The draft says: " Article 19: The European Parliament Chapter I - The institutional framework 2. The European Parliament shall be elected by direct universal suffrage of European citizens in free and secret ballot for a term of five years. Its members shall not exceed seven hundred and thirty-six in number. Representation of European citizens shall be degressively proportional, with a minimum threshold of four members per Member State:

The term degressively proportional' was aparently invented at the convention and remains undefined. Mathematics knows relationships which are
 * proportional
 * progressive (grow faster then proportional)
 * regressive (grow slower then proportional)

So, the term is at best undefined, possibly an oxymoron, and this view (not humble perhaps, but based on good background in math)is shared by UK House of Lords

which says:
 * We would welcome an explanation of this term ("degressively proportional"). (Paragraph 16 of the House of Lords' Report.)

It may seem that the row was not about number of votes accorded to states but about the treshold for having bills aproved. This is apparent from a presentation of  Spanish view

which says:
 *  We believe also that the general interests of the EU are at stake. With the double-majority system proposed the EU would, in practice, end up being governed by the four most populous Member States. .. a given number of votes (232/321 in a 25-member EU or 255/345 in a 27-member EU) and the support of at least half the Member States

BUT THEN draft says in article 24:
 * 2. When the Constitution does not require the European Council or the Council of Ministers to act on the basis of a proposal of the Commission, or when the European Council or the Council of Ministers is not acting on the initiative of the Union Minister for Foreign Affairs, the required qualified majority shall consist of two thirds of the Member States, representing at least three fifths of the population of the Union.

This, three fifths of the population of the Union means either that MEPs have uneven voting power, or, that degressive function must be very close to proportional.

It does not says 'three fifths of the votes in parlament' but 60% of the population, so stripping the small states of any advantage, which were given to them in a Nice, and hiding it in an obscure language (not necesarily intentionaly).

IMHO: The constitution, which is not a law, but rather 'a mother of laws', should be more general and abstract then a specific treaty, such as treaty of Nice. It cannot allocate the number of votes, but has to state a principle by which allocation shall be made in many future years. It should state it clearly. The treshold, number of votes for passing a law, is a different issue, different laws may have different tresholds, some may need 60%, some 66% and some just majority.

It seems that this draft of the constitution is not lucid, is too long and complex, sometimes confusing often too nebulous to mean anything

Wicky page needs to explain better what the 'voting row' was about.

I can add the explanation about the threshold and voting row and 'degressive function' into a separate page with topic : Voting in EU parlament. Should I go ahead? Do I hear a second? Petr 23:17, 2004 Jan 8 (UTC)

- The IGC is _not_ the Convention but the Intergovernmental Conference, thus the forum in which the 25 nation states reviewed the constitution draft after it was put forward by the convention. - The discussion on votes ('double majority') was in no way related to the Parliament but to the Council. Chapter I Art. 19 2.) mentioned refers to the Parliament and thus not to the most controverse issue - Previous treaties had fixed the thresholds, nice distributed the numbers of voices to the states when voting in the council. Here the Spanish and the Polish were very succesful and gained with 27 votes each only 2 less than each of the 4 'big' Italy, Britain, France and Germany (although Germany is double as big as Spain or Poland, the others are at least 50 % bigger) The constituion now introduces a completely new system with two tresholds which need to be reached: 55 % of the states (currently 15) which represent 65 % of the Union's population. So Spain and Poland fought again loosing a privilege - and blocked the system change (at least officially) for this reason

Criticisms of Cablamat's edits and his responses

 * One of the primary uses of an encyclopedia (and a Wikipedia, of course) is to provide, in a balanced and unbiased way, the necessary factual information underpinning any debate so that readers can make up their own minds. To my mind, this is exactly what Cabalamat is doing. Toby 10:33, 2 Jan 2004 (UTC)

 * There are two things that it's been suggested are a violation of NPOV, my "Contrary to common belief", and my speculation about reasons behind Spain and Poland's behaviour. The first, I think, is a matter of fact; for example it was previously written on this page as fact, and no-one had corrected it, and I myself was quite surprised when I worked out the figures and found out it was not true. As for the second, clearly S and P's behaviour cannot be motivated by a worry over the proportion of Council votes they get; the figures prove that. I've changed the rest of the wording of that paragraph, to dispell other concerns that it might be non-NPOV. — Cabalamat 19:14, 6 Jan 2004 (UTC)

I do not see a bias, but an error. I just did read the page for the first time.
 * I do not see any bias, just facts, but I find things which are not clear.

The point that Poland and Spain are not losing votes is interesting, it is not clear if it is realy so, not clear what the controversy is about.

I suggest we anticipate that the number of pages dealing with this lively issue will rise considerably between now and 2010. So, I would favor keeping this page as an introduction with a list of topics, each topic containing the NPOV history of the current state of affairs and optionally descriptions of various views such as those of small states, large states, etc.
 * If this happens, it should happen organically. Mr. Jones 14:18, 2 Nov 2004 (UTC)

So, in concusion, I appreciate what the author (cabalamat) did so far, and think we should build on it.

A few points of controversy for the article
Like eg.: And probably many many others
 * the central European held referenda supported accsesion on terms negotiated in Nice, so technicly one can't claim their citizens support EU membership (although most voters probably never read any of the documents)
 * the question of invocatio Dei (the assertion of the supremacy of God over the EU by the treaty)
 * fears that in the future the charter of fundamental rights might be abused to force memeber states such as Ireland, Poland or Spain to allow abortion, gay "marriages", a leftist agenda or whatever else will be popular at the time.
 * the opposition towards a common foreign policy.

N.N. 15:23, 17 Mar 2004 (UTC)

 * It would indeed be nice, provided it was kept NPOV. Go for it. Toby W 15:53, 17 Mar 2004 (UTC)

The recent battle between the appointed Commission and the elected Parliament could be worked into this as it drew on similar themes. Mr. Jones 14:18, 2 Nov 2004 (UTC)

 * <>

I don't really agree that that would be "abuse". Nightstallion 20:36, 11 Jan 2005 (UTC)

 * Point taken, but I think the point being made is that it would be inappropriate for decisions on those kinds of policies to be forced by a supranational constitution, rather than made at national level. (The question of whether the constitution would indeed do that is a different one.) Wombat 10:11, 12 Jan 2005 (UTC)

Reverted changes
Reverted anonymous POV edits by 217.229.61.69, which deleted current text and inserted:

''The objective of the draft Constitution is to give Brussels more power. It reduces the requirements to come to a ruling on EU level by removing veto rights and replacing them with majority votes from the countries. The goverments of France, Germany and the United Kingdom are pressing to change the voting balance in the Council of the European Union (which is currently still one of the main bodies) to give these three nations an absolte majority of votes which means that these three countries would rule the EU.''

and:

''This is then called as "Needed for the functioning of the future Union when 10 new countries from Eastern Europe join the existing 15 member states on 1 May 2004." (see EU enlargement). But it is not required to change the votes of states in the council, keeping the current system helps the functioning of the Union by lowering the burdens of Goverments to implement the endless stream of directives from Brussels. The EU will not be as powerful without this change, but the national states will also have more power without it. It would not be as possible to rule against the majority of the countries.''

and:

''Michael Howard launched a nationwide campaign for a referendum on the proposed constitution. The constitution is wrong in principle, and he said that the Government's approach had been dishonourable. "When it comes to transferring power from Britain to Brussels, Tony Blair says 'trust me'. Well, Conservatives say 'trust the people'.''

and similar changes to the bullet points under 'Provisions of Constitution'.

Instead of swingeing anti-constitution POV edits, the factual information in this article should be left alone, and then 2 new sections could be added: say, Arguments in favour and Arguments against. Much of the above content could then be restored, hopefully staying on the right side of NPOV this time. Toby W 08:58, 7 Apr 2004 (UTC)

Powers of the proposed European Union Minister for Foreign Affairs
I've heard that the minister will be able to set foreign policy. Is this correct? If so, would he have any say in the engagement of the EU rapid reaction mechanism? Mr. Jones 12:28, 20 Apr 2004 (UTC)

 * As the draft currently stands, the foreign minister will be able to represent the EU abroad, but only in areas where the EU countries have previously agreed. He/she won't be able to set policy, only to act on it once it's been agreed by the European Council and European Parliament. He will have the same powers in that sense as Javier Solana, the present EU High Representative who is essentially the 'foreign minister of the EU' at the moment, though not in name. I'm not sure about the connection between the proposed foreign minister and the rapid reaction force. Toby W 13:56, 20 Apr 2004 (UTC)

So he will be a diplomat, and may negotiate on behalf of the EU? I need to read Article I-27 :-) Mr. Jones 16:54, 25 Apr 2004 (UTC)

The Spanish election's effect on the constitution
Shouldn't this article include mention of the fact that the constitution "went away" after no agreement was reached then "came back again" once the Socialists won the Spanish election? Pete/Pcb21 (talk) 11:00, 22 Apr 2004 (UTC)

NPOV dispute notice
Randy/Toby, I noticed you put the dispute notice back. Is this version of the article disputed? By who, and why? I think it all looks quite dry and reasonable. Should we remove the notice? Pete/Pcb21 (talk) 14:01, 23 Apr 2004 (UTC)
 * Notice removed due to lack of response. Mr. Jones 13:31, 25 Apr 2004 (UTC)

Gratuitous praise
Wombat, Kaihsu, et al, this article is developing very nicely. Keep up the good (NPOV) work! I'll hope to tidy up and build on the article based on the constitution's structure in the next month or two. Mr. Jones 13:43, 7 Jul 2004 (UTC)

Wonderful article
I just wanted to comment on how well-laid-out and clear I found this article. I very much enjoyed reading it.

More gratuitous praise
Really enjoyed reading the article and I now feel much better informed - okay, okay, just plain informed - about the proposed constitution. One suggestion would be to include a section on the perceptions of the constitution in Europe. We in the UK are more traditionally eurosceptic and so any mention of European legislation gets touched by that. But what about on the continent? How does France for example perceive the constitution? In the UK we tend to think of the EU having gone too far (whether rightly or wrongly), do other countries feel it isn't doing enough? Philip Thomas --82.38.227.149 14:30, 29 Jan 2005 (UTC)

 * Thanks Philip - the article is the result of lots of work by a large number of people over a long time! As for perceptions by other countries, you're right, some of that belongs here (or perhaps in a related article) - but stuff about how we see the EU generally, rather than the constitution in particular, is covered in other areas such as Euroscepticism. Wombat 10:18, 31 Jan 2005 (UTC)

Interesting sites
This might need moving somewhere else. I found this site: http://yourparty.org. It looks quite good, and there is some material about the referrendum and other political matters. I wonder if they would link to wikipedia? http://www.publicwhip.org.uk looks interesting too. Who runs them, I wonder? Mr. Jones 13:27, 7 Jul 2004 (UTC)

Criticism of the effectiveness of the constitution in rectifying the EU's democratic deficit
Many critics consider that the propossed constituion does not reduce the gap between citizens and institutions, and fails to democratize the union. Shouldn't we write a short entry in the controversy subsection?

User:TheWikipedianTheWikipedian 22:39, 22 Aug 2004 (UTC+2)

 * Is something a controversy when it's mutually agreed? That the constitution keeps the current situation as is in many respects is a disappointment but doesn't seem particularly "controversial" when everyone agrees about it. Not "controversial" in the same way as the debates about the issues where the EU constitution would actually affect, and people disagree about whether it's moving in the right direction. Aris Katsaris 21:08, 21 Aug 2004 (UTC)

 * Well, I see what you're saying, but I agree with User:TheWikipedianTheWikipedian. A 'controversy' doesn't have to be facts that are disagreed over - it can be a disagreement about whether the situation is as it should be. Toby W 09:37, 23 Aug 2004 (UTC)

Balance is required in the quotes at the end of the article
We desperately need a sceptic quote to balance the new pro-constitution one by Rifkin. Toby W 12:30, 27 Sep 2004 (UTC)

Germany
An edit that slipped through the net a while back - Roadrunner changed "Germany's constitution prohibits referenda" to "Germany's constitution does not require a referendum". I've reverted this change. The constitution of Germany makes all plebiscites illegal on constitutional issues. Toby W 23:35, 7 Jul 2004 (UTC)

The UK

 * The imminent UK referendum on it (to cost £100m, apparently) should be mentioned too. Mr. Jones 13:40, 23 Apr 2004 (UTC)

 * If you are interested in this topic, please take a look at my new article British referendum on EU constitution. Pete/Pcb21 (talk) 13:45, 23 Apr 2004 (UTC)

 * A good summary. Very party-oriented and news-like, but that's hard to avoid at this stage, I suppose. A reference to and contrast with the 1975 referendum would be good.  I intend to improve the summary of the EU constitution.  Are you a Tory, by any chance? :-) Mr. Jones 17:35, 23 Apr 2004 (UTC)

 * The opposite, actually - but compared with my usual stuff this was quite a political topic - so I am not that surprised if I swung too far when trying to present all sides and be NPOV. Happy for updates as you see fit. Yes more mention of '75 is a must - in fact it is a topic I intend to learn more about whilst there is lots of information about it in the papers this week (I was born shortly after the event).

 * Might be worth chatting to your folks about. I think I'll do that myself. Mr. Jones 20:28, 23 Apr 2004 (UTC)

Republic of Ireland
A recent edit by 193.1.209.101 inserted the following: Ireland's own constitution, for example, insists that a constitutional referendum be held on all international treaties involving a substantial transfer of national sovereignty. While this may be uncontroversially true (I don't know enough about Irish constitutional law to judge), it does imply something which is far from controversial, namely that the constitution involves a substantial transfer of national sovereignty. Those who are pro-constitution argue that it does not involve that kind of transfer.

To keep things NPOV, I've therefore softened the paragraph in question to read: Ireland's own constitution, for example, insists that a constitutional referendum be held on all international treaties CONCERNING national sovereignty. While this is slightly less informative about Ireland's constitutional law, it does avoid the POV implication about the constitution. Toby W 11:29, 18 Oct 2004 (UTC)

 * (I made the original edit here.)

 * By making the change above I did not seek to imply any pro or anti treaty bias regarding the transfer of sovereignty (for the record I am pro-Constitution), rather I was striving for accuracy regarding the state of Irish Consitutional Law on this topic. I used the phrase "substantial transfer of national soveriegnty", because there is no question of every international treaty having to be put to the people in a referendum, nor is there any question of every treaty "concerning national sovereignty" having to be put to referendum. (In fact it can be robustly argued that every international treaty "concerns national sovereignty" as it will limit the State's choices to some extent in the future.) However, there seems to be a consensus amongst Irish Constitutional scholars that any treaty involving a "substantial transfer" of national sovereignty must imperatively be endorsed by a constitutional referendum. This is a legal concept, not a political one; it is a subtle point of constitutional interpretation.

 * While I realise this is not a article about Irish Constitutional Law, this kind of niggling inexactitude irks me, as I'm sure it does many people with a legal background. I accept your point, however: this may read like a bias to the untrained eye. However, "concerning national sovereignty" is inexact for the reasons stated above. I feel that the phrase "concerning a transfer of national sovereignty" would be an effective compromise; it would be acceptably close to the actual state of the law whilst omitting the potentially controversial adjective "substantial". I don't think it can be denied that the adoption of the Constitution would "concern a transfer of national sovereignty" whatever one's political point of view.

 * I see the difficulty. It's a tricky one. The problem is that I've seen much pro-constitution literature explicitly insisting that the treaty does not involve any transfer of national sovereignty at all, for two reasons: (1) no new areas are added to the EU's field of competences over and above the present constitution (i.e. set of treaties) - so any arguable transfer took place long ago and has already been endorsed by the Irish people; (2) many pro-EU campaigners describe the co-operative structure of the EU as not a transfer of national sovereignties but rather a pooling or enlargement of national sovereignties. I'm not expressing any opinion about these arguments, only pointing out that they are frequently made.

 * All that said, I think your compromise is better than any option I can think of. The latent NPOV overtones niggle me a little, but since the latent inexactitude of the alternative would niggle you, I'm prepared to accept this as a necessary evil, if that suits? :o) Toby W 11:17, 23 Oct 2004 (UTC)

 * Cool :o)

 * As a final point, it's worth noting that this is a controversial area of Constitutional Law, and it isn't clear-cut whether the Constitution would STRICTLY require a referendum on the Constitutional Treaty. During the run-up to the first Nice plebiscite in 2001, serious doubts were expressed by various scholars as regards the necessity for a referendum. However the reality is that since a successful challenge was brought to the ratification of the Single European Act, it has become a political necessity for a referendum to be held on every european treaty in Ireland, whatever the exact legal situation. So to a large extent the debate is moot.

 * Anyway it has been refreshing to discuss this issue in a balanced, rational manner for a change. Thanks. hankMajor 01:29, 24 Oct 2004 (UTC)

 * The principles and mechanisms for the use of Constitutional Referenda in the Republic of Ireland1 is described in . It does not, however, explain why it is needed in this case. Following the link to the Irish Constitution, Article 29 contains a list of treaties that the Government is authorised to ratify.  Observe that it contains all the significant ECSC/EEC/EC/EU treaties in the past.

 * 1Not "Southern Ireland"! This is a geographical designation (like "Southern England" or "Southern Mexico") and can be read as meaning Munster or Cork.  I corrected this today, but I see that the error has been reverted. I've corrected it again.  Before undoing, please review article Ireland.

Signatures on the treaty: how significant are they?
I know very little about this topic but hasn't it now been signed? Is it still "proposed" (a word found all over the page)? Should it now be moved to European Union constitution? violet/riga (t) 18:43, 29 Oct 2004 (UTC)
 * It's not been ratified yet. So it has no legal power yet -- it's also highly uncertain whether it will ever achieve ratification. I don't think we can call it "European Union constitution" yet. A sentence that simply said "The European Union's constitution" would wrongly imply that this document currently has legal standing. Aris Katsaris 19:41, 29 Oct 2004 (UTC)
 * OK thanks. violet/riga (t) 19:44, 29 Oct 2004 (UTC)

The structure of the article
This article was beautifully structured. Now the TOC is unnecessarily massive and the structure is much worse. Hopefully this can be undone and put back to how it was. Correct me if there is any reason why the new structure needs to be in place. violet/riga (t) 15:30, 30 Oct 2004 (UTC)

 * I agree with you but please say *which* previous version you mean. There's:
 * http://en.wikipedia.org/w/wiki.phtml?title=Treaty_establishing_a_constitution_for_Europe&oldid=6964259 (most elements are bullets, which diminishes the size of the TOC, and which is my preferred solution)
 * http://en.wikipedia.org/w/wiki.phtml?title=Treaty_establishing_a_constitution_for_Europe&oldid=6982415 (which again has very long TOC but it doesn't divide the provisions into groups)
 * http://en.wikipedia.org/w/wiki.phtml?title=Treaty_establishing_a_constitution_for_Europe&oldid=6702313 which doesn't structure the provisions at all.
 * Aris Katsaris 15:51, 30 Oct 2004 (UTC)
 * The top one, I agree, is the preferred solution. violet/riga (t) 17:05, 30 Oct 2004 (UTC)

The structure is much better now. Sorry for messing around with it - I must have been having an off day. The original article was entirely a bulleted list, which wasn't good, but you're quite right, my solution of adding lots of small headers made the TOC rather silly. Anyway, we have the best of all worlds now, with bullet points acting as headers so the TOC isn't too long, and with the other prose changes incorporated too. Sorry again for generating all that extra work! Toby W 10:30, 1 Nov 2004 (UTC)
 * See also Structure of the proposed EU constitution for the full structure. Mr. Jones 14:18, 2 Nov 2004 (UTC)

Control of guns and arms?
I am basing my comments on this "reader friendly version" (a PDF). Its still 300 pages.

There are only 4 mentions of "arms" in this and nothing on "gun". Does this mean there is no siginifigant position with respect to the United States' second amendment?

 * Yes, that's exactly what it means. The treaty isn't the same kind of constitution as, say, the US constitution, since it's designed to govern a union of nation states, not to create a single nation state. It only deals with those subjects which individual countries have agreed to handle collectively at European level, leaving everything else to the individual countries to decide. So there's no mention of gun laws, or anything else that remains the province of nation states. Toby W 09:39, 22 Jun 2004 (UTC)

 * It's about what the council considered important enough to be handled by a constitution. E.g. the EU constitution does prohibit death penalty, while in the US this issue is handled independently by the federal states. (Which does not say that this is something introduced by the EU constitution. Unsurprising, the EU formally joins the European Convention on Human Rights.) – Hokanomono 08:05, Nov 3, 2004 (UTC)

EU law, national law and international law
Just as a point of international law: it isn't true that all parties have to agree to a treaty before it becomes effective. Plenty of treaties have gone into effect without ratification by all parties. Roadrunner 06:53, 3 Jul 2004 (UTC)
 * I'm no expert, but can a country be held to terms of a treaty which it didn't ratify? In any case, isn't it still true that all international law supersedes national law? Toby W 09:22, 3 Jul 2004 (UTC)
 * Ianal, but afaik a treaty might take effect before all of the signatory states ratify it, however it takes effect only in the souvereign territory of the signatory states that have ratified it. The conditions when a treaty starts to take effect should be specified by the treaty. – Hokanomono 08:28, Nov 3, 2004 (UTC)

EU law and national law
An edit today resulted in the following paragraph:

''Defenders of the constitution point out that it has always been the case that EU law supersedes national law, and that it has long been accepted in European nations that international law which a nation subscribed to overrides national law. The proposed Constitution does not change this arrangement for currently extant EU law, as all were adopted by unanimous decision or by unanimous decision. The Qualified Majority mechanism changes the nature of further EU law, as it thus authorizes possible adoption and enforcement of new law without the consent of one or more member nations.''

I've changed this, correcting a couple of inaccuracies and clarifying some confusion.

1) It's not true to say that all existing EU law was adopted unanimously. A number of areas are already decided by QMV and many laws have been passed using that mechanism already. The new constitution simply expands the use of QMV to cover more areas of day-to-day (i.e. not sovereignty-sensitive) decision-making.

2) The method by why laws are voted on, QMV or unanimity, is separate from the question of whether EU law supersedes national law, though related. It's clearer if these two points are made separately, I think.

So the paragraph now reads:

''Defenders of the constitution point out that it has always been the case that EU law supersedes national law, and that it has long been accepted in European nations that international law which a nation subscribed to overrides national law. The proposed Constitution does not change this arrangement for either extant or future EU law. However, the question of whether the arrangement is considered acceptable in the first place is still an issue for debate.''

''With the widening of Qualified Majority Voting also envisaged in the constitution, however, the issue of the primacy of EU law becomes more sensitive. This is because there is an increase in the number of areas in which laws can be passed by majority vote. It is therefore possible for an individual country to vote against a proposal (unsuccessfully) and subsequently find its national legislature to be bound by it.''

I mention this here by way of providing an explanation of what might otherwise have looked like a rather arbitrary change. Toby W 19:34, 1 Nov 2004 (UTC)

Complexity
"Defenders also point out that it must logically be longer, since it is not an all-embracing, general constitution, but rather a document that precisely delineates the limited areas where the European Union has competence to act over and above the competences of member states."

Longer than what? this seems US specific. Also, this is factually incorrect as the US constitution is largely concerned with delineating power between the states and the US federal government. If there are no objections I will just remove the sentence. - cohesion [[User_talk:Cohesion|☎]] 06:54, Nov 17, 2004 (UTC)

 * Well, I see what you mean (especially about being US-specific), but it strikes me that the article is making a valid point. I'm no expert on the US constitution, but my understand is that it covers all aspects of sovereign competences, saying "This, this and this can be done at state level, and everything else lies in the federal domain". The proposed EU constitution doesn't pretend to have the same blanket authority, so it has to specifically go through, step by step, which particular competences are being ceded to EU level. So if the sentence is to be deleted, won't something else have to go in its place? Toby W 10:32, 17 Nov 2004 (UTC)

 * The U.S. Constitution establishes the entire federal government--the presidency, Congress, and the Supreme Court. Prior to this, the country had no national executive or judicial branch, and the role of its legislative branch was very different--it was a one-house congress with very limited powers.  The Constitution manages to establish the powers of all these AND delineate power between the federal government and states, in 4,600 words.  There's no reason for Europe's constitution to be 12 times longer.

Just a little reminder: the topic of the division of power between the US federal state and the states has been controversial since the foundation of the US. Remember, they even fought a very bloody civil war because they disagreed with the way the federal government dealt with the desires of the southern states. The so-called "commerce clause" has been creatively interpreted to the point where just about anything may be voted through it. (Note that, lately, the US Congress even voted a law about a specific patient on a matter that should have been reserved for state law, by all accounts; see Terri Schiavo.)

Thus, I think it has been established that the US Constitution, by itself, does not specify the balance of power between the states and the union. This balance is largely set by constitutional conventions, case law, and a lot of strong-arming. My understanding is that the proposed European constitution has rather chosen to set the specifics in written law. David.Monniaux 09:23, 3 May 2005 (UTC)

Balance of 'Reaction' quotes
There are 12 quotes in the Reaction section, and I'm wondering if the sample is balanced enough. The quotes come from a wide variety of different countries (good), and from a variety of different political viewpoints (good). But there are basically two views expressed: (1) that the constitution preserves the sovereignty of co-operating nation states, or (2) that it is a move towards a superstate. Now, by my count, there are 9 quotes for the former viewpoint and only 1 (Howard's) for the latter. Does this seem right?

I know that the debate here in the UK is very skewed, with hard eurosceptics like UKIP and wannabes like the Tories making more noise than all the more moderate parties put together; and I know that, in general, the constitution is seen elsewhere in the EU as a victory for the UK and nation state principles, something that stops federalism dead in its tracks. So maybe, in this EU-wide context, the balance of quotes is about right. All I can say is that, from a UK perspective, the balance looks to be skewed rather towards the 'nation state' side. What do people think? Do we need a couple more Howard-type quotes to even things out, or is the balance OK?

And, incidentally, one thing that's definitely missing is a quote from somebody on the left who objects to the constitution on social grounds - perhaps a French socialist like Laurent Fabius? - Toby W 09:47, 23 Nov 2004 (UTC)

 * I don't know exactly why Fabius opposes the proposed constitution, but it's generally believed that he does so because of the internal squabbles inside of the French Socialist Party. Fabius has never had a reputation of a true "Socialist". Better take somebody like Olivier Besancenot or Arnaud Montebourg. David.Monniaux 09:25, 3 May 2005 (UTC)


text:
User:M.Bridge

Munter - This word is often used in Wales to describe someone with an unfortunate appearance - a related word would be "Minger", as is again often used to describe someone with unattractive features.

title: User:M.Bridge


text:
Yoshimi Ishibashi

Yoshimi Ishibashi (石橋義三) is a professional race car driver born in Tokyo, Japan.

Ishibashi has participated in Japanese GT Series since 1994, winning the 1995 GT2 class championship. Since 1996 he has participated in the GT300 class, driving for Gaikokuya Porsche in recent seasons.

title: Yoshimi Ishibashi


text:
George B. Lyle

George Browning Lyle (January 18, 1884 – December 14, 1948) was briefly mayor of Atlanta during the month of May in 1942. Roy LeCraw had fought a tough campaign against incumbent William Hartsfield and won on a slim margin but just a few months after taking office, he joined the army leaving mayor pro-tem Lyle until new elections could be held. In late May, Hartsfield was elected by a large margin being the only well-known candidate. Lyle died on December 14, 1948, at the age of 64.

title: George B. Lyle


text:
Vehicle Information and Communication System

Vehicle Information and Communication System (VICS) is a technology used in Japan for delivering traffic and travel information to road vehicle drivers. It provides simple maps showing information about traffic jams, travel time, and road work - usually relevant to your location and usually incorporating infrared beacons.

It can be compared with the European TMC technology.

VICS is transmitted using:
 * FM multiplex broadcasting (uses DARC). With this method, you have to manually select road conditions on-screen.
 * Infrared beacons over Japan's highways and urban roads. With this method, road conditions automatically pop up.
 * Microwaves in the ISM band.

It is an application of ITS.

The VICS information can be displayed on the car navigation unit at 3 levels:

 * 1) Level-1: Simple text data
 * 2) Level-2: In form of simple diagrams
 * 3) Level-3: Data superimposed on the map displayed on navigation unit (e.g., traffic congestion data)

Information transmitted generally includes traffic congestion data, data on availability of service areas (SA) and parking areas (PA), information on road works and traffic collisions.

Some advanced navigation units might utilize this data for route calculation (e.g., choosing a route to avoid congestion) or the driver might use his/her own discretion while using this information.


text:
Maryland Route 213

Maryland Route 213 (MD 213) is a 68.25 mi state highway located on the Eastern Shore of Maryland in the United States. The route runs from MD 662 in Wye Mills, Queen Anne's County, north to the Pennsylvania border in Cecil County, where the road continues into that state as Pennsylvania Route 841 (PA 841). The route, which is a two-lane undivided highway most of its length, passes through mainly rural areas as well as the towns of Centreville, Chestertown, Galena, Cecilton, Chesapeake City, and Elkton. MD 213 intersects many routes including U.S. Route 50 (US 50) near Wye Mills, US 301 near Centreville, and US 40 in Elkton. It crosses over the Chesapeake & Delaware Canal in Chesapeake City on the Chesapeake City Bridge. MD 213 is designated by the state as the Chesapeake Country Scenic Byway between the southern terminus and Chesapeake City with the portion north of MD 18 in Centreville a National Scenic Byway. In addition, the route is also considered part of the Atlantic to Appalachians Scenic Byway between Chesapeake City and MD 273 in Fair Hill.

The route was initially designated as U.S. Route 213 (US 213) in 1926 when the U.S. Highway System was established, running from Ocean City west and north to US 40 in Elkton. The highway was rerouted to cross the Nanticoke River in Vienna by 1933, with the former route between Mardela Springs and Eldorado becoming a part of MD 313 and the alignment between Eldorado and Rhodesdale becoming part of MD 14. US 213 was rerouted to use the Emerson C. Harrington Bridge over the Choptank River in Cambridge in 1939; the former alignment between Vienna and Easton became MD 331. Meanwhile, the road between Elkton and the Pennsylvania border became Maryland Route 280 (MD 280). US 213 was moved to a bypass of Easton and straight alignment between Easton and Wye Mills in 1948. A year later, the southern terminus was cut back to US 50 in Wye Mills, with an extended US 50 replacing US 213 between Wye Mills and Ocean City. In 1971, US 213 and MD 280 were decommissioned and replaced with MD 213.

Route description
MD 213 is a part of the National Highway System as a principal arterial between US 40 and MD 279 within the town of Elkton.

Queen Anne's County
MD 213 begins at an intersection with MD 662 (Wye Mills Road) in Wye Mills, Queen Anne's County, heading to the north on College Drive, a two-lane undivided road. From the southern terminus, MD 213 is designated by the state as the Chesapeake Country Scenic Byway. The road heads into farmland, passing Chesapeake College on the west side of the road before intersecting US 50 (Ocean Gateway). Past this intersection, MD 213 continues north on Centreville Road, passing more farms as well as some residences. The route continues into a mix of woods and farmland before intersecting the northern terminus of MD 309 (Starr Road). A short distance later, the route reaches a partial cloverleaf interchange with US 301 (Blue Star Memorial Highway).

Past the US 301 interchange, MD 213 continues through more rural areas before entering the town of Centreville, where it passes some residential and commercial areas. It intersects the eastern terminus of MD 18 (4H Park Road). At this intersection, MD 213 becomes a part of the National Scenic Byway portion of the Chesapeake Country Scenic Byway. Past MD 18, the route continues into residential areas, eventually splitting into a one-way pair carrying one lane in each direction with northbound MD 213 following Commerce Street and southbound MD 213 following Liberty Street. This pairing continues past residences before heading into the downtown area, where the road intersects MD 304 (Water Street). Westbound MD 304 joins northbound MD 213 for a concurrency that lasts until the Broadway intersection north of the Queen Anne's County Courthouse, where MD 304 continues to the west; MD 304 is unsigned along the concurrency with MD 213.

MD 213 leaves downtown Centreville past MD 304. The one-way pair ends and the route continues north on two-lane undivided Liberty Street, passing by residences and some businesses. At the end of the one-way pair, the route sees an average of 12,912 vehicles daily. It intersects the western terminus of MD 305 (Hope Road), and passes by more residences before becoming Church Hill Road, which heads north into a mix of woods and farms with some housing developments. It angles to the northeast and then north through more rural areas, consisting mostly of farm fields with some wooded areas and occasional residences. MD 213 continues in a northeast direction before reaching the town of Church Hill.

Upon reaching Church Hill, the route intersects unsigned MD 19A (South Main Street), which loops to the east of MD 213 to head into the town. Meanwhile, MD 213 bypasses Church Hill to the west, running through woodland, and intersects the western terminus of MD 300 (Sudlersville Road). The route heads back into farmland and has a junction with the western terminus of MD 19 (North Main Street), leaving the Church Hill area. MD 213 continues north through a mix of woods and farms. From here, the route turns northwest through more farmland before it passes some residences and businesses near the intersection with the western terminus of MD 544 (McGinnes Road). Past the MD 544 intersection, the road continues through rural areas, but residences and businesses start to increase. MD 213 passes through Kingstown before crossing the Chester River on a drawbridge.

Kent County
Upon crossing the Chester River, MD 213 enters the town of Chestertown in Kent County, where the route heads northwest on Maple Avenue through residential areas. It intersects the northern terminus of MD 289 (Cross Street) in the downtown area and turns north onto Washington Avenue at the junction with Spring Avenue. Washington Avenue carries MD 213 north through residential neighborhoods and passes to the west of the University of Maryland Shore Medical Center at Chestertown and by Washington College. Past the college, the route gains a center left-turn lane and continues past business, intersecting MD 291 (Morgnec Road). Past this intersection, MD 213 continues through residential and commercial areas before it narrows back to a two-lane road.

The road leaves Chestertown and becomes Augustine Herman Highway, which is named for Bohemian surveyor Augustine Herman. The road heads into farmland with residences along the west side of the road. MD 213 intersects the southern terminus of MD 297 (Worton Road) and heads past more farm fields. The road turns northeast and has a junction with the southern terminus of MD 561 (Hassengers Corner Road). It continues through more rural areas, consisting mostly of farms with some wooded areas before reaching Kennedyville, where MD 213 passes residences. In Kennedyville, the road crosses the Chestertown Branch of the Northern Line of the Maryland and Delaware Railroad at-grade.

Upon leaving Kennedyville, MD 213 continues back into agricultural areas. The route makes a turn to the east, with an old bypassed segment remaining as unsigned MD 855. MD 213 intersects MD 298 (Browntown Road) and resumes northeast and east again. It intersects unsigned MD 449 (Shallcross Wharf Road), a road that connects to MD 444 (Kentmore Park Road), which MD 213 intersects a short distance later. From here, the route continues east and northeast through more farmland before heading into a mix of farms and woods. The route enters the town of Galena, where it becomes Cross Street. In the center of town, MD 213 meets MD 290 and MD 313 at the intersection with Main Street. Here, MD 290 and MD 313 continue south on Main Street, MD 290 continues east on Cross Street, and MD 213 makes a left turn to head north on Main Street. Main Street passes residences before leaving Galena, where the road becomes Augustine Herman Highway again. The road continues through a mix of farms and woods before reaching the community of Georgetown, where the route passes some homes before crossing the Sassafras River on a drawbridge near a marina.

Cecil County
MD 213 enters Cecil County upon crossing the Sassafras River, where it continues north through wooded and agricultural areas with some residences. The route enters the town of Cecilton, where it becomes Bohemia Avenue. In Cecilton, MD 213 passes residences along with a few businesses and intersects MD 282 (Main Street) in the center of town. Upon leaving Cecilton, the name of the road becomes Augustine Herman Highway again. The Cecilton area is home to a small Amish settlement. MD 213 passes through farmland, with intermittent woods and rural residences, before crossing over the Bohemia River. Past the Bohemia River, the road turns northeast through more rural areas before intersecting the western terminus of MD 310 (Cayots Corner Road) in Cayots. Past MD 310, the route continues through farms and woods with some residences and businesses before heading into the Chesapeake City area, where residences increase along the road and it passes to the east of Bohemia Manor High School. Upon reaching the town of Chesapeake City, MD 213 features an interchange with MD 537, which provides access to the southern portion of Chesapeake City as well as to MD 286 and MD 342.

In Chesapeake City, the Chesapeake Country Scenic Byway ends and MD 213 continues north as a part of the Atlantic to Appalachians Scenic Byway which crosses the state of Maryland. Past this interchange, MD 213 passes over the Chesapeake & Delaware Canal on the Chesapeake City Bridge, a tied-arch bridge. After crossing the canal, the road intersects MD 285 (Lock Street), which provides access to the northern portion of Chesapeake City. Past MD 285, the route resumes through a mix of woodland and farmland, crossing Long Creek and Perch Creek, with residential areas increasing along the road. It approaches the Elkton area and heads through residential areas.

MD 213 enters the town of Elkton at the intersection with US 40 (Pulaski Highway). Past this intersection, the route heads northwest on Bridge Street, passing through commercial areas as a three-lane road with a center left-turn lane. The route narrows to two lanes before it crosses Big Elk Creek and intersects Main Street, which continues east of MD 213 as a one-way street eastbound. Past Main Street, the road heads north and passes over Amtrak's Northeast Corridor railroad line before intersecting MD 545 (Elkton Boulevard). MD 213 continues past commercial areas to the west and residential areas to the east as a three-lane road with a center left-turn lane before its junction with MD 279 (Newark Avenue). Past the MD 279 junction, the route narrows back to two lanes before it leaves Elkton and becomes Singerly Road, which continues past residences. MD 213 enters a mix of woods and farms and passes over Interstate 95 (John F. Kennedy Memorial Highway) without an interchange and CSX's Philadelphia Subdivision railroad line within a short distance of each other. It continues through a mix of farms and residences before the road reaches the Leeds roundabout with Leeds Road/Elk Mills Road west of the community of Cherry Hill. Past the roundabout, the route resumes north, intersecting MD 273 (Telegraph Road) in the community of Fair Hill west of the Fair Hill Training Center and the Fair Hill Natural Resources Management Area, where the Atlantic to Appalachians Scenic Byway leaves MD 213 and heads west along MD 273. From here, the name of MD 213 changes to Lewisville Road and it curves northwest and north through a mix of rural areas and residences before ending at the Pennsylvania border. Here, the road continues north into that state as PA 841 (Chesterville Road) and reaches the community of Lewisville, intersecting the southern terminus of PA 472 (Lewisville Road) just north of the state line.

History
In 1911, what would become US 213 was completed as a state highway between Hebron and Riverton via Mardela Springs, Easton and Longwoods, Centerville and Church Hill, and in the Chestertown area, while the present road between Elkton and Singerly was also built as a state highway. The portion of roads between Riverton and Sharptown, Brookview and Hurlock, Church Hill and southeast of Chestertown, northeast of Chestertown and northeast of Kennedyville, and Chesapeake City and Elkton were under contract to be built as state roads. At this time, a state highway was proposed along the segments between Ocean City and Berlin, Salisbury and Hebron, Sharptown and Brookview, Hurlock and Easton, Longwoods and Centreville, northeast of Kennedyville and Chesapeake City, and Elkton and Fair Hill. By 1915, the entire length of road between Ocean City and Elkton was completed as a state highway. The state highway between Singerly and south of Fair Hill was finished by 1923. The state highway was finished to Fair Hill by 1927.

With the creation of the U.S. Highway System on November 11, 1926, US 213 was designated to run from the Atlantic Ocean in Ocean City west and north to US 40 in Elkton. The route headed west from Ocean City through Berlin and Salisbury (where it intersected its parent route US 13), before it ran northwest to Mardela Springs. Here, US 213 turned to the north and ran to Eldorado, where it continued northwest through Hurlock and Preston to Easton. From Easton, the route continued north to Wye Mills and followed the present alignment of MD 213 to Elkton. A new Dover Bridge over the Choptank River east of Easton, replacing a bridge built in the 19th century, was completed in 1932. By 1933, US 213 was rerouted to cross the Nanticoke River at Vienna instead of at Sharptown. The route headed west from Mardela Springs to Vienna, where it turned north to Rhodesdale. The former alignment of US 213 became a southern extension of MD 313 between Mardela Springs and Eldorado and an eastern extension of MD 14 between Rhodesdale and Eldorado.

In 1939, US 213 was realigned to cross the Choptank River at Cambridge on the Emerson C. Harrington Bridge that opened in 1935. The route replaced MD 344 between Vienna and Mount Holly, ran concurrent with MD 16 between Mount Holly and Cambridge, and turned north across the river to continue to Easton. The former routing of US 213 between Vienna and Easton became MD 331. In 1939, the road between US 40 and the northern terminus of US 213 in Elkton and the Pennsylvania border north of Fair Hill was designated MD 280. The portion of MD 280 between Fair Hill and the Pennsylvania border was built as a state highway by 1933. On July 28, 1942, the vertical lift bridge carrying US 213 over the Chesapeake & Delaware Canal, built in 1927, was destroyed when the tanker Franz Klasen struck it. The destroyed bridge was replaced by the current Chesapeake City Bridge, which opened in 1949. The approaches to the original bridge are now designated as MD 537 and a western extension of MD 285.

US 213 was relocated to a new divided highway alignment to the north between Herring Creek in West Ocean City and Ocean City in 1942, including a new bridge across Sinepuxent Bay into Ocean City (the current Harry W. Kelley Memorial Bridge). The bypassed portion of US 213 remained a state highway and was designated MD 707 by 1948. A portion of US 213 south of Easton was moved to a straight alignment by 1946; the former routing became MD 565. By 1946, work was underway for a bypass to the east of Easton along with a straight alignment between Easton and Wye Mills. US 213 was moved to this new alignment in 1948, with the former alignment on Washington Street in Easton becoming an extended MD 333 in the southern part of the city and an extended MD 33 in the northern part the city, while MD 662 was designated on the original alignment between Easton and Wye Mills.

In 1949, US 50 was extended from Annapolis across the Chesapeake Bay, first via a ferry run by the Maryland State Roads Commission, then over the original span of the Chesapeake Bay Bridge when it was completed in the middle of 1952, all the way to Ocean City. The southern terminus of US 213 was cut back to US 50 in Wye Mills, with the former route of US 213 between Wye Mills and Ocean City becoming part of the newly-extended US 50. The former routing of US 213 between Wye Mills and Ocean City is now US 50 between Wye Mills and Vienna, Old Route 50 through Vienna, US 50 between Vienna and Salisbury, US 50 Bus. through Salisbury, MD 346 between Salisbury and east of Berlin, and US 50 between east of Berlin and Ocean City. In 1951, US 213 was realigned at Cayots to eliminate a sharp turn at the MD 310 intersection. The bypassed alignment became a western extension of MD 310 and MD 310A (now a county road named Cayots Corner Road Spur). On December 3, 1971, the American Association of State Highway Officials approved the elimination of the US 213 designation. US 213 along with MD 280 were replaced by MD 213, which ran from MD 662 in Wye Mills north to PA 841 at the Pennsylvania border north of Fair Hill. In 1994, the at-grade intersection with US 301 was replaced with an interchange.

Auxiliary route

 * MD 213A runs along the ramp from MD 537D to southbound MD 213 in Chesapeake City, Cecil County. The route is 0.05 mi long.

title: Maryland Route 213


text:
Talk:Chinese herbology

Wiki Education Foundation-supported course assignment
This article is or was the subject of a Wiki Education Foundation-supported course assignment. Further details are available on the course page. Student editor(s): Atc424. Peer reviewers: Crystalyu1214, JaredWeiss.

Above undated message substituted from Template:Dashboard.wikiedu.org assignment by PrimeBOT (talk) 17:32, 16 January 2022 (UTC)

Pronunciation
If herbology is the study of herbs, why is it pronounced "HERB-ol-o-gy" when herb is pronounced "ERB"?? Unsigned comment by 24.176.65.31

Because in American English we affect a French accent for this word (silent "H") but in British English they say the "H."

Redirection
Why does this page redirect to Chinese herbology?

Removing end of a sentence
Hi all, I am going to remove this sentence-ending - "with little or no rigorous evidence of efficacy.[5]" - becuase I clicked on the linked article to read this evidence, and I saw that it referred to AFRICAN traditional medicine - not CHINESE traditional medicine. Thanks all Gam3r mojo (talk) 02:52, 18 April 2020 (UTC)
 * Hello. This study is from The South African Medical Journal, so it is reasonable that it would be discussing usage by African people, but it appears this study is about herbology more widely. The lead is a summary of the body of the article, so if this is supported later, it's acceptable to use such sources for convenience. There are also WP:FRINGE issues. Please gain consensus before removing this again, thanks. Grayfell (talk) 03:08, 18 April 2020 (UTC)

Use of Chinese medicine in China as of 2021
I want to instate new information from a study conducted in 2021 about the use of Chinese herbs in China

see the following article Wang, C., Sun, S. & Ding, X. The therapeutic effects of traditional chinese medicine on COVID-19: a narrative review. Int J Clin Pharm 43, 35–45 (2021). https://doi.org/10.1007/s11096-020-01153-7

I would like to reach a consensus on the addition of this information from the editors. As of now I am waiting patiently for your thoughts. — Preceding unsigned comment added by ToltecShaman (talk • contribs) 00:59, 29 August 2021 (UTC)
 * I have posted at Wikiproject Medicine's talkpage, asking that editors with experience in assessing the reliability of medical sources look at this discussion. I note though that, while you've provided a source, you haven't proposed specific changes to the article here. Editors can review the changes that ToltecShaman was making in the article history. Best Girth Summit  (blether)  18:39, 29 August 2021 (UTC)
 * Well of course a review of articles published in low-quality TCM journals sponsored by the Chinese government is going to find a positive effect of TCM... JoelleJay (talk) 18:19, 1 September 2021 (UTC)
 * My edits, (which I see from the edit history of the article are supported by a number of different editors), Were based on the fact that the source supplied by ToltecShaman is unreliable. I also objected to the removal of a perfectly well sourced statement regarding the "fraught with pseudoscience" nature of the topic. The policy that applies is WP:RS and the guideline WP:MEDRS. See Also Traditional Chinese Medicine where OP wants to make similar POV edits.
 * I note that consensus supports my edits. -Roxy the grumpy dog . wooF 18:45, 1 September 2021 (UTC)
 * Chinese herbal teas do heal diseases. That's a fact. But, wait, there is a trick: Chinese herbal teas are filled with allopathic medicines. tgeorgescu (talk) 21:31, 7 June 2023 (UTC)

title: Talk:Chinese herbology


text:
User:ArminStephan~enwiki

Armin Stephan, Dipl.-Bibl.

Chief Librarian of the Library of the Augustana-Hochschule

D-91564 Neuendettelsau

title: User:ArminStephan~enwiki


text:
Talk:Church of Our Lady Mary of Zion

Non-Kohanim..
There are more than enough Cohens in the world, which according to this article can access the Ark. So, why haven't they let in a Cohen? -- nlitement [talk]  18:43, 23 May 2008 (UTC)
 * Possibly they don't recognise the descent of the assorted worldwide Kohanim? Or perhaps they would also need to be an annointed Priest of the Temple?  No idea - just speculating.  The "holy of holies" of the OT temple was only entered by the High Priest once a year. 62.196.17.197 (talk) 15:21, 25 April 2014 (UTC)

New class grade
Regretfully, I have downgraded the class of this article from "B" to "Start". It needs a more comprehensive discussion of the history of the church (e.g., Francisco Álvares's description of the 16th century church), & definitely more sources -- inlined, if possible. I'd do it, but I have so many other things on my plate to take care of. -- llywrch (talk) 16:11, 3 March 2011 (UTC)

Not Neutral Point Of View
This:

"Agreeing with ancient sources about a magnificent light emitted from the Ark, the History Channel in a 2008 special claimed that many of the guardian monks have died in short time, mostly with cataracts having formed in their eyes.[2]"

seems to be advocating a point. It could be reworded to be more neutral, something like:

"Ancient sources state that the Ark emits a magnificent light.[citation needed]. In a 2008 special, the History Channel claimed that many of the guardian monks have died in a short time, mostly with cataracts having formed in their eyes.[2]." — Preceding unsigned comment added by 66.14.154.3 (talk) 03:57, 5 July 2011 (UTC)

Ark of the Covenant claim
The "Ark of the Covenant" section makes this statement: "This lack of accessibility, and questions about the account as a whole, has led foreign scholars to express doubt about the veracity of the claim." This does not accurately express the utter lack of acceptance of the claims amongst scholars (and really, everyone except those associated with this church). I suggest it be rephrased to something like "This lack of accessibility, and questions about the account as a whole, has done little to change the widespread skepticism of the veracity of the claim". Occam's Shaver (talk) 08:18, 21 September 2014 (UTC)

Tigray War contradiction
This page, which was last edited yesterday on January 19th, contains a section whose content reads, in part, "750 people who were hiding in the church were brought out and killed by TPLF itself not Ethiopian National Defense Force (ENDF) soldiers or Amhara militia." This claim goes against both of the articles cited at the end of the sentence, particularly this one, which states that "Ethiopian federal troops and Amhara militia" carried out the massacre. The information on this page also goes against the information presented in the Wikipedia page for the event in question (titled "Maryam Ts'iyon massacre"), which also claims that the ENDF and Amhara miltiia were responsible for the attack, with no mention of the TPLF whatsoever. These contradictions are likely attributed to the severe lack of international reporting on the incident. For example, many sources haven't even settled on the date that it took place. 73.163.166.247 (talk) 16:15, 20 January 2021 (UTC)

Wikipedia as a platform for disinformation, please correct the section about the so-called culprits. Sources in doubt, contradictions.
The Church Mary of Zion is built by Amhara kings Fasilides, it's part of our culture & identity. The claim about Amhara militia's killing 750 people taking shelter in a church is ludicrious!

It doesn't hold water, other more recent sources say it's Eritrean, no investigation has taken place to verify!2A02:A466:1107:1:79BC:10FB:33C5:EDC1 (talk) 18:59, 26 February 2021 (UTC)

title: Talk:Church of Our Lady Mary of Zion


text:
The Lyon's Den

The Lyon's Den is an American legal drama television series set in Washington, D.C. The legal drama starred Rob Lowe as a lawyer named Jack Turner, newly appointed as partner of a long-established law firm that, as the plot revealed, harbored some dark secrets; the series' title and firm's name are allusions to the surname of Lowe, who also served as executive producer. Much of the plot centered on the firm's internal politics and on Turner's attempts to uncover information on some of the firm's conspiracies while acting as the defense for some of the firm's higher-profile clients in a different case each episode.

The cast, headed by Lowe, also included Matt Craven, Elizabeth Mitchell, Kyle Chandler, Frances Fisher, and David Krumholtz.

The series premiered on the American television network NBC on September 28, 2003, but although thirteen episodes were ordered and produced, only six aired before NBC cancelled the series on November 30, 2003, due to low ratings. When the UK's channel Five bought the United Kingdom terrestrial TV rights to the series in 2004, it aired all thirteen episodes. Rob Lowe later stated that after finding out about the show's cancellation he and the show's producers decided to make the last episodes – which they were contractually obligated to make – as absurd as possible, including an "off the wall" and freakish ending.

Characters
Character descriptions courtesy of Entertainment Weekly and The Blade
 * John "Jack" Turner (Rob Lowe), "the most principled lawyer" working for the corrupt firm Lyons, Lacrosse, and Levine longtime friend
 * Grant Rashton (Kyle Chandler), one of "amoral lawyers"
 * Brit Hanley (Frances Fisher), Rashton's "evil secretary"
 * Ariel Saxon (Elizabeth Mitchell), a lawyer recovering from alcoholism, hired by her lover Rashton to "discredit Jack"
 * Jeff Fineman (David Krumholtz), Ariel Saxon's paralegal, who is attracted to her
 * Terrance Christianson (James Pickens Jr.), one of "amoral lawyers"
 * Harlan M. Turner (Rip Torn), the Washington, D.C. senator and Jack's father

Singer Jewel's casting
In his memoir, Love Life, Lowe stated that he lobbied for singer-actress Jewel to be cast as his love interest in the show after seeing her performance in Ang Lee's cult film Ride With The Devil. However, when she arrived on set there was no chemistry between the two and Jewel brought her then-boyfriend, rodeo star Ty Murray, to the set with her on the day the actors were to film a love scene. According to Lowe, Jewel appeared uncomfortable at having to kiss Lowe, and unsuccessfully asked if the scene could be removed.

Finally relenting by stating, "Let's just do this", Lowe said Jewel agreed to do the scene. Lowe stated: "But as we approached the kissing moment it became strained and it's never good when you can't trust that your fellow actor is on the same page... I pecked her on the lips; her mouth scrunched closed like you would do if someone was going to stick something unwanted into it, which I was not intending. I sort of moved my head from side to side to make it look real, like there was at least a dollop of energy or passion. 'Cut', said the director. Jewel looked at me and wiped the back of her hand across her lips like an American Sign Language version of 'Yuck'".

Jewel was one of the celebrities chosen to roast Rob Lowe in 2015. She joked that she had asked to write out the kiss with Lowe "because I knew where that mouth had been."

Cancellation and improvised ending
Lowe said, in a May 9, 2014 appearance on the NPR radio gameshow Wait Wait Don't Tell Me, that he and the show's producers purposefully made all 13 episodes – which they were contractually obligated to make for possible DVD distribution – as absurd as possible. The last episode ended with Lowe's character being exposed as a serial killer by Grant Rushton (Kyle Chandler), whom he then kills before jumping to his death from the firm's office tower.

title: The Lyon's Den