Peter Brawley
peter.brawley at earthlink.net
Thu Aug 18 23:17:59 CDT 2005
>1. Is Singapore a city, a nation-state or a nation? >2. Are these terms obsolete? ... etc ... Cities, nations, states and the like aren't natural kinds (if indeed there's any such thing), so wouldn't the 'right' meaning be the one that helps solve the problem at hand? Modelling gets interesting where either/or breaks down entirely. A mule is half donkey and half horse. A Sunbeam was a car and a boat. Singapore is a city, a nation and a state. Some humans are anatomically and/or hormonally male and female. We're all sick and well. Canada is ... oh never mind. PB ----- Arthur Fuller wrote: >Fortunately, there is a DB design question herein, else I'd have to post it >on the OT list, which is way too noisy for me LOL. > >I was under the impression that Singapore was a city-state, but I googled a >few things and discovered that it is considered a nation. Further, said URL >(http://www.cia.gov/cia/publications/factbook/geos/sn.html) contains a very >interesting set of columns, but I will confine this question to the set >titled "Government", which includes: > >Country Name: > Long form: Republic of Singapore > Short form: Singapore >Government Type: >Capital: Singapore >Administrative Divisions: >Independence: >National Holiday: >Constitution: >Legal System: >Suffrage: >Executive Branch: >Judicial Branch: >Legislative Branch: >Political Parties and Leaders: >Political Pressure Groups and Leaders: >International Organization / Participation: >Diplomatic Representation from the U.S.: >Flag Description: > >(Fill in the blanks by visiting the URL above.) > >My questions are: > >1. Is Singapore a city, a nation-state or a nation? >2. Are these terms obsolete? >3. Was Singapore declared a nation simply so it could fit conveniently into >the database? >4. Are there any other cities to which we might ascribe the descriptor >"city-state"? (Or do we fold all such potential candidates into "nations" as >this database does with Singapore?) >5. Are there any parts of the nation of Singapore which are not parts of the >city Singapore? >6. Prior to 1999, how was Hong Kong classified? (And currently, how is Macao >classified?) >7. Prior to reunification, what was the status of Berlin? >8. In post WWII, what was Vienna (c.f. "The Third Man", directed by Carol >Reed and starring Orson Welles and Joseph Cotton)? A city-state? A city >controlled by four armies? A remnant of pre-war Austrian glory? > >Opinions and references most welcome! And just to ensure that this stays in >the DB realm, until now I have been using the ISO list of nations. Perhaps I >should expand my list of columns to include all these other attributes? > >TIA, >Arthur > >_______________________________________________ >dba-Tech mailing list >dba-Tech at databaseadvisors.com >http://databaseadvisors.com/mailman/listinfo/dba-tech >Website: http://www.databaseadvisors.com > > > > -- No virus found in this outgoing message. Checked by AVG Anti-Virus. Version: 7.0.338 / Virus Database: 267.10.12/75 - Release Date: 8/17/2005