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August 21[edit]

car insurance[edit]

What does full insurance coverage for car mean? Thank you. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 203.240.243.100 (talk) 06:36, 21 August 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Probably the maximum insurance you can get on your car (which can include things like medical care for injuries sustained in a crash). By contrast, many people get "the minimum required by law". StuRat (talk) 07:25, 21 August 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Ask an insurance company. HiLo48 (talk) 07:42, 21 August 2012 (UTC)[reply]

In the U.S., car insurance generally comes in two levels: liability (which covers damage you do to others), and collision (which covers damage you do to your own car). "Full insurance" usually means that you purchase both levels. Most state laws that require car insurance require every driver to have liability insurance, while many car loans also require collision. That makes sense: the state has an interest in seeing that if you cause an accident, you can cover the costs of it, but doesn't care what happens to your car. If you have a car loan, the bank technically owns the car; the bank thus has an interest in protecting its investment with full insurance. Of course, YMMV, and different companies and jurisdictions may have different concepts and ideas of what is insured. --Jayron32 12:10, 21 August 2012 (UTC)[reply]

In the UK, full cover is usually called "comprehensive insurance", or, rather tautologically, "fully comp." This is in contrast to "Third party only" cover, which is the minimum legal requirement. (Strictly speaking the legal minimum is the slightly lower "RTA[Road Traffic Act]-only cover", but this is not widely available - see discussion here.) AndrewWTaylor (talk) 15:17, 21 August 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Chinese characters[edit]

Can you please tell me what Chinese characters are in the picture, and what's their meaning? The first two looks to me like 幸 (luck?) and 福 (blessing?), but I'm not sure. Thanks. ShoobyD (talk) 12:25, 21 August 2012 (UTC)[reply]

You're right about the first two (they're probably one word, 幸福), and the last is 笑. I can't recognize the third one; not sure if it's actually Chinese. rʨanaɢ (talk) 12:53, 21 August 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Looks like a case for Hanzismatter. Angr (talk) 15:37, 21 August 2012 (UTC)[reply]

The third character looks a bit like a 気 that has gone wrong. However, the other characters do not look so badly written, so it would be a bit surprising if they messed up that one so badly. By the way, I know in Japanese that 気 means things like "spirit" or "feeling" (as well as others), but when I just tried typing it into a Chinese dictionary it came back with no results. Is that right? 86.179.6.55 (talk) 21:02, 21 August 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Try 氣. 気 is a Japanese simplification. -- BenRG (talk) 00:59, 22 August 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Aha, thanks, I didn't know that. So, for it to be 気, I guess it would have to be in Japanese not Chinese. AFAIK the other characters all make sense (or, at least, have a meaning) in Japanese. 86.179.6.55 (talk) 01:24, 22 August 2012 (UTC)[reply]

The third character may be 安 (1.peaceful, tranquil, quiet). --Kusunose 03:48, 22 August 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Thank you all so much! Angr, awesome blog. I've sent him the picture.

ShoobyD (talk) 06:24, 22 August 2012 (UTC)[reply]

"Reverse Definition(?)"[edit]

'What is the term or phrase for someone looking for facts, events to support his own thesis/belief/theory; while ignoring/avoiding/rejecting facts and events which may refute his theory. Kind of a prejudiced opinion. "The economy will improve...(low interest rates, increased sales, decreased expenses)...not the economy will decline (third world labor takes US jobs, interest rates will increase, there could be war, etc" [personal information removed] Roger Saul — Preceding unsigned comment added by 98.230.213.113 (talk) 17:34, 21 August 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Rationalization and cherry picking come to mind. There's also casuistry. μηδείς (talk) 18:15, 21 August 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Also perhaps confirmation bias. (I removed your email and phone number: see notes at the top of this page: 'Do not provide your contact information. E-mail or home addresses, or telephone numbers, will be removed. You must return to this page to get your answer.') AndrewWTaylor (talk) 19:28, 21 August 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Note that this is the result of extreme partisanship, which, in the US, has resulted from the repeal of the Fairness Doctrine, which previously required all media outlets to air both sides of each issue. So, back then, if you presented biased data to your viewers, you would be called out on it by the opposition. Now, without the doctrine, liberal media outlets have an extreme liberal bias and conservative media outlets have an extreme conservative bias. They both present outright lies to their audience, and are never corrected, convincing their respective audiences and polarizing the nation even further. This repeal may be the cause of many of the problems in the US, like the current inability of Congress to compromise on budgets, resulting in runaway debt. StuRat (talk) 20:08, 21 August 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Under the old system, they had to air both parties lies on the same channel. Today, they each get their own channel to air their lies. --Jayron32 21:23, 21 August 2012 (UTC)[reply]

The difference is that people can now watch whichever channel supports their own POV, and are thus no longer exposed to alternative POVs. This leads to them believing that people at the opposite end of the spectrum are evil, and must not be compromised with (and to some, they think those at the opposite end must be killed, as in the Gabby Giffords shooting). StuRat (talk) 20:56, 22 August 2012 (UTC)[reply]

What in the world are you talking about? In so far as the lone nutcase who shot her even had political opinions they were liberal. μηδείς (talk) 21:41, 22 August 2012 (UTC)[reply]

You can always substitute in your own example, like shootings at abortion clinics or somebody apparently stockpiling bricks to throw at conservatives at the Republican convention coming up in Tampa. StuRat (talk) 21:51, 22 August 2012 (UTC)[reply]

My point was that this "right wing extremists caused the Gifford shooting" trope is a false narrative ginned up by the media before the facts of the case came in and in direct contradiction to the merest look at the evidence. I think it is really, really bad that it is parroted on the Ref Desk. Just look at our own article on Jared Loughner:

Views on politics

Records show that Loughner was registered as an independent voter and voted in 2006 and 2008, but not in 2010.[25][26] ...Loughner's high school friend Zach Osler said, "He did not watch TV; he disliked the news; he didn't listen to political radio; he didn't take sides; he wasn't on the Left; he wasn't on the Right."[16] But a former classmate, Caitie Parker, who attended high school and college with Loughner, described his political views as "left wing, quite liberal,"[29] "radical."[30]

Dislike for Gabrielle Giffords

According to a former friend, Bryce Tierney, Loughner had exhibited a longstanding dislike for Gabrielle Giffords. Tierney recalled that Loughner had oft expressed a view that women should not hold positions of power.[32][33] He repeatedly derided Giffords as a "fake". This belief intensified after he attended her August 25, 2007 event when she did not, in his view, sufficiently answer his question: "What is government if words have no meaning?"[18] (Loughner kept Giffords' form letter, which thanked him for attending the 2007 event, in the same box as an envelope which was scrawled with phrases like "die @#!*% " and "assassination plans have been made".)[34] Zane Gutierrez, a friend, later told the New York Times that Loughner's anger would also "well up at the sight of President George W. Bush, or in discussing what he considered to be the nefarious designs of government."[33]

Let's not spread false rumors at the Ref Desk in pursuance of political narratives. μηδείς (talk) 06:15, 24 August 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Fox News and MSNBC are the opposite ends of the spectrum, but isn't CNN more neutral? And there's always foreign networks. 203.27.72.5 (talk) 23:50, 21 August 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Such political shenanigans is called spin (politics), often due to prejudices and misunderstandings that get blown out of proportion, and in general terms, it may come about as the pinnacle consequence of raw obliviousness to a blind culture. --Modocc (talk) 23:31, 22 August 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Cherry picking and confirmation bias are certainly the best answers for the general idea. In addition, such behavior sometimes manifests as group think, "quote mining" and a censorship of ideas. Also, related to confirmation bias and cherry picking is congruence bias, which can prematurely close off investigation of either mainstream or alternative theories and often leads to pseudoscience. -Modocc (talk) 04:13, 23 August 2012 (UTC)[reply]